There's always a little shampoo left in the
bottle, which means we’ve always had to
either add water and shake or throw out good
product in that infuriating bottle. Now, thanks
to a new engineering breakthrough, we may
be showering into an exciting age
of ‘poo conservation.
Yes, researchers at Ohio State University
have devised an inner lining for plastic shampoo
and soap bottles that of consists ultra-fine
silica nanoparticles. They use solvent to
temporarily soften the inside the bottle,
allowing the microscopic y-shaped structures
to embed in the polypropylene plastic. Zoom
in close enough and, according to engineers
Bharat Bhushan and Philip Brown, and these
structures resemble "shaggy heart-shaped pillows"
that overhang the surface of the plastic,
creating tiny air pockets. The structures
physically prevent the soap from sustaining
the droplet shape necessary to drip through
-- and cling annoyingly -- to the plastic.
Engineers licked similar problems with ketchup
bottles and other food containers a while
back, but soap has always proven a more difficult
challenge -- in large part because this is
just how soap works. The very chemical properties
that make soap "soapy" also make them stick
to plastic. It’s a surfactant, which means
that it acts to lower the surface tension
of liquids, allowing grime and oils to wash
off our bodies. That's great when it comes
to cleaning your naked parts, but it also
causes the bottled soap to spread out and
hang on for dear life. Engineers have devised
nanostructures like this before for soap bottles,
but practical application -- more in keeping
with microchip microfabrication -- was always
too costly. This new method promises a cost-effective
way to cut down on all that end-of-the-bottle
product waste. So the immediate application
here is better shampoo bottles, but the researchers
think the technique might benefit biomedical
devices, catheters and anything else that
needs to stay clean
in the face of viscous invasion.
Excited about your future bathtimes yet? Let
us know what you think, and for more weird
scientific insights into daily life, be sure
to visit Now.Howstuffworks.com
each and every day.
