I use a Cora Ball [1] in my laundry for the same purpose. Studies say it is only 26% effective, better than nothing.
From the paper:
> We observed no significant reduction of microfibers by weight with the Cora Ball compared to the control.
Check out figures 2, 3 and 4.
It turns out that the cited 26% number is only for the number of fibers removed. Oddly, in the same experiments, there was no significant decrease in the mass of microfibers, or the length of the remaining fibers when using the Cora ball (but there was a > 80% decrease in both number and mass of fibers when using a product that actually filters lint out of the wastewater.
My read of this study is the the 26% number may not be reliable. The reported p-value was near 0.05, which means it would not be too surprising if the difference between Cora Ball and control was due to expected experimental variation.
Hopefully these sound wave systems can be adapted to municipal water systems so as to remove the consumer as the point of failure. Really cool to see the technology that creates Chladni figures being applied to something so useful.
Reminds me of how things start off as entertainment many times, and eventually make a way into an industrial application.
I was just thinking about this phenomenon, in terms of how it runs counter to the criticism of "solutions in search of problems" and projects derided as "toys".
This is a good response to those condemnations: often great ideas work in entertainment first, then industry. The canonical example from antiquity is Heron of Alexandria's automata.
Nowadays, roller coasters seem like a technology that future historians will puzzle over non-utilization beyond entertainment. (The cause of course is zoning, which halted housing and transportation innovation a hundred years ago.)