Scientists at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, have developed a new type of super-slippery toilet bowl that won’t stick to anything. At scale, new toilet bowl designs could eventually replace porcelain and ceramic toilet bowls.
Humankind has relied on porcelain and ceramics for toilet bowls for centuries. Although it’s unlikely to completely replace that material anytime soon, scientists’ super-slippery toilets could give us a new material to rely on.
The ultra-slippery toilet bowl was designed as a 3D printed item and featured in a video. new scientist As shown, almost nothing can stick to the bowl. More interestingly, the researchers found that even after the toilet bowl was used many times and rubbed with sandpaper, it remained slippery.
One of the biggest benefits of having a super slippery toilet bowl isn’t just its cleanliness. If nothing sticks to the bowl, it means that using this type of material may also reduce the amount of water you use to flush your toilet.
The researchers call it an “Abrasion-Resistant Super-Slippery Flush Toilet (ARSFT),” and it’s made from materials that tend to repel complex fluids and viscoelastic solids. However, this type of material typically breaks down easily due to mechanical wear, the researchers noted in a paper published in 2016. advanced engineering materials.
However, the material used to make this ultra-slippery toilet bowl is able to withstand sandpaper and remain as slippery as before, which is a huge accomplishment. It’s hard to imagine this kind of material replacing current toilet bowls, but it’s great to see what scientists can achieve in this particular field, and see where they take this. would be interesting.
Perhaps in the future we may even see this material used in lunar toilets.