Why not other applications? Boat hulls, water slides, dishes, cookware?
New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
41–50 of 156 posts
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#42Hi Everyone! Birgitt here from spotLESS Materials -- we are commercializing this technology and some of the authors of the Nature Sustainability paper are part of our team. I'll try answering some of the questions I'm seeing. Would love to hear your feedback! Check out our products at: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop Check out the full research article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#ci…
Rain-X.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#43> When we put that coating on a toilet in the lab and dump synthetic fecal matter on it This reminds me of a documentary about toilets, and one factoid was that American toilets were much worse at flushing than Japanese ones, and would block more frequently, and it turns out that American ones were tested with a small standardized rubber ball, while Japanese ones with the real deal, including big productions.
I watched a video from This Old House where they toured a toilet factory. They used Miso paste in a condom to simulate fecal matter.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> people will use less water, they won't even notice any effect These are mutually exclusive statements in this context.
"any effect on their quality of life" - what I meant ... now does being motivated to fix a leaky toilet that otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to do count as a quality of life decrease?
How many people have leaky toilette that they can easily fix to lower the impact of higher fees?
vs.
How many people are living on the margins and that extra $10 represents the last meal to get to the end of the month?
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#45500 flushes is less than a year for a toilet used twice a day (say before and after bed), I hope that coating is cheap, easy to apply, and doesn't create substantial pollution either as it is created or used. I hope the sewer system doesn't need to just add water as a result. Toilet water use doesn't seem like a big enough contributor to the problem that it's much use optimizing it in most places. But there are proba…
I tend to agree, but I (and maybe you) live in the Great Lakes region where water is abundant and cheap. Optimizing water use just doesn't seem worth it. But I can totally see this coating helping in regions like India, who have a real problem with open-air defecation.
...so to solve that, you would put this stuff on the ground so that shit slips easily into the nearest river?
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#46Are we sure this is not a step backwards? We woild benuaing.less water, but filling our lakes with lubricant?
From a comment above from the developer, it seems this stuff (particularly the second coating) is akin to hair conditioner.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tend to agree, but I (and maybe you) live in the Great Lakes region where water is abundant and cheap. Optimizing water use just doesn't seem worth it. But I can totally see this coating helping in regions like India, who have a real problem with open-air defecation.
...so to solve that, you would put this stuff on the ground so that shit slips easily into the nearest river?
I think you're deliberately misrepresenting what I meant.
The current PM of India campaigned on a "Clean India" effort to tackle open-air defecation by building millions of toilets. Now, you can argue the efficacy of this effort, but arguably, the entire scheme requires adequate means to actually flush the toilets, which requires water, which requires infrastructure. All I meant is that efforts to minimize the amount of water required (i.e. the coating in the article) could be helpful here.
Another place where this can be helpful is in areas that aren't covered by sewage infrastructures, like houses that are on septic tanks, or campgrounds/parks with outhouses.
I'm not an expert on this matter, I'm just suggesting that I can see how it might be helpful.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#48Hi Everyone! Birgitt here from spotLESS Materials -- we are commercializing this technology and some of the authors of the Nature Sustainability paper are part of our team. I'll try answering some of the questions I'm seeing. Would love to hear your feedback! Check out our products at: https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/shop Check out the full research article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0421-0#ci…
I think it is a brilliant product if it works as explained will sell at the price you have set. I will buy some.
I think a little bit of silicone is a smart trade off to save a lot of toilet-cleaning chemicals and compared to a toilet brush this is an order of magnitude better.
It would be interesting to know how many hacker-news users actually clean a toilet regularly. I'm guessing not many if any but that is an outrageous assumption. I know you will still have to clean the toilet after a spotLESS application but it will be easier and use less detergent.
Does the silicone lubricant have to come in a spray application or could you license spotLESS lubricant to the likes of Toilet-Duck to incorporate into toilet cleaners? If councils treated their sewers with the nanohair layer would the silicone lubricant floating past keep it lubricated.
It's a shame that the swoosh logo is already taken.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#49I cannot wait — I cannot, cannot wait — for my cat to _finally_ fall in
I've got a wheel of cheese with my name on it.
Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water
#50Reminds me of an old plumbing trick: got a really stuck toilet? Pour a little dish soap into the bowl. It makes everything slippery so dislodging debris is much easier.
I think this works for hair clogs too, IIRC.