Nano-enhanced textiles clean themselves with light | Hacker News Reader

Nano-enhanced textiles clean themselves with light

phys.org

23 pointsdnetesn4 comments

"When the nanostructures are exposed to light, they receive an energy boost that creates "hot electrons". These "hot electrons" release a burst of energy that enables the nanostructures to degrade organic matter."

Organic matter, like our skin?

The article doesn't go into much detail, but it may be safe for scale reasons, like the oligodynamic effect where metals like silver kill bacteria but can be safely worn on the skin. The research paper [0] indicates that they coated cotton with copper and silver.

[0] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/admi.201500632/ab...

May I recommend "The man in the white suit", a British comedy from the 50s that predicted this development.

  http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0044876/

It's fun, but also a time capsule of capital vs labor in the 1950s.

The evolution of the home clothes washer pretty much eliminated the half of the labor argument: people don't send most of their laundry out to be cleaned much anymore.

This might lessen the need, but I don't think it will entirely eliminate the need for washing clothes. Not all substances that that soil clothes are organic. There's the mineral components of dirt, oils, other chemicals, etc.

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