Self-cleaning clothing is really coming – sciencealert

“The benefit of textiles is they have a 3D structure that makes them excellent at absorbing light, which accelerates the process of degrading organic matter,” says Rajesh Ramanathan. “There’s more work to be done before we can start throwing out our washing machines, but this advancement lays a strong foundation for the future development of fully self-cleaning textiles.”

When the nanostructures are exposed to light, they receive an energy boost, creating hot electrons. These release immediate energy that enables the nanostructures to break down organic matter, such as spilled tomato sauce.

Researchers at the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility and NanoBiotechnology Research Lab at RMIT worked with copper and silver-based nanostructures known for their ability to absorb visible light.

The challenge for scientists is to scale this concept from the lab by developing methods to produce these nanostructures on an industrial scale and permanently attach them to textiles.

The RMIT team’s innovative approach involved growing the nanostructures directly onto the textiles by dipping them into several solutions, resulting in stable nanostructures forming within thirty minutes.

When exposed to light, some of the enhanced textiles began self-cleaning in less than six minutes.

“Our next step is to test our nano-enhanced textiles with organic compounds more relevant to consumers, to see how quickly they can handle common stains like tomato sauce or wine,” says Ramanathan.

The study was published in the journal Advanced Materials Interfaces.

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