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New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

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Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#101

Post by walshemj »

birgitt wrote: post #15

Hi 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…

Interesting approach back at my first job in Hydrodynamics research BHRA (Now Bhr Group ) in the early 80's

I shared an office with an engineer who's got assigned to research the efficacy of toilets - we had some interesting brainstorming sessions on how to solve some of the experimental problems.

I even started to look at using neural nets to use image recognition to measure how efficient a design was, but as the base hardware cost was over £250,000 that went nowhere, a pity but it would have taken my career in a different direction

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#102

Post by tapland »

JaRail wrote: post #57
birgitt wrote: post #15

Hi 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…

> 3. Regarding the environmental friendliness of our coatings: Our product is based on silicone. It has been shown in the scientific literature that silicone can be decomposed naturally in soil within 4-7 days. It breaks down in silica, water, and carbon dioxide. "Based on silicone" does not mean "degrades like silicone." It also doesn't mean your coating will behave like the silicone "in the scientific literature."…

Can any remains be sorted out at common water treatment facilities?

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#103

Post by johnpowell »

shortandsweet wrote: post #100
johnpowell wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to get gross here. I have been dealing with neck/mouth cancer for a while and using a feeding tube for about half of my calories. My movements, depending on the alignment of the stars resemble the mortar used to join cinder blocks together. It is explosive and sticks to the bowl. I can flush ten times and it doesn't budge and I have to manually get in there. So I am going to try this. It is cheap enough and even…

Try a parachute. Put some to down in the water before you let loose.

Sadly, we are dealing with a Jackson Pollock situation.

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#104

Post by rhapsodic »

johnpowell wrote: post #103
shortandsweet wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try a parachute. Put some to down in the water before you let loose.

Sadly, we are dealing with a Jackson Pollock situation.

Props for keeping your sense of humor, dude.

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#105

Post by gpm »

fireattack wrote: post #95
gpm wrote: post #14

500 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…

You only use toilet twice a day? Keep in mind you need to flush after pee too.

I was being conservative, since the number of times any given toilet is used per day is pretty variable and the conservative result was already enough to say "this needs to be re-applied frequently".

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#106

Post by gpm »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #61
birgitt wrote: post #15

Hi 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…

If it's not harmful to sea life then a great potential market for this would be marine toilets. They all use extremely small amounts of water (especially the freshwater ones) and skid marks are always a problem. Boaters are also used to maintaining things like coating. Smaller market but a good niche to start and spread from.

Why do salt water marine toilets use small amounts of water? It seems like that's a resource that is very easy to acquire.

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#107

Post by HorizonXP »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #94
HorizonXP wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the entire scheme requires adequate means to actually flush the toilets, which requires water The vast, vast majority of these toilets are basically just holes in the ground. They do not flush.

Exactly. In our village, it was a latrine. We were lucky enough to have ceramic ones.

When I first encountered this as a 4 year old, I was so disgusted with the idea of squatting over a latrine that my parents had to have a Western toilet installed in our house in the village. When I returned at 10 years old, I was more amenable to the idea.

Every time you had to go, you had to fill a bucket of water from the well, and carry it with you to the outhouse. Then you’d squat over the latrine, do your deed, and then use a cup (a lota) to pour water over your backside, using the other hand to help rinse. Heaven forbid you had to do all of this at night.

When I got back to Canada, it was the toilet that I missed the most. Now, I appreciate the sheer convenience and modern marvel that is modern plumbing and sewage.

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#108

Post by tropo »

dwyerm wrote: post #11
michaelt wrote: post #3

> The researchers also predict the coating could last for about 500 flushes in a conventional toilet before a reapplication of the lubricant layer is needed. It's a neat idea - especially the fact the bowl remains white, unlike a coating of PTFE or similar. I wonder if it's an idea they can develop further into a permanent coating?

...which is strange, since PTFE is naturally white. I think we've become used to seeing it on silver and grey frying pans. But that said, what's wrong with a dark-colored toilet?

All colors are wrong. So that you can properly see a clog, the toilet must be clear glass.

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#109

Post by Ericson2314 »

gpm wrote: post #106
jmvoodoo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not harmful to sea life then a great potential market for this would be marine toilets. They all use extremely small amounts of water (especially the freshwater ones) and skid marks are always a problem. Boaters are also used to maintaining things like coating. Smaller market but a good niche to start and spread from.

Why do salt water marine toilets use small amounts of water? It seems like that's a resource that is very easy to acquire.

Especially with plastic plumbing

Re: New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

#110

Post by aaronax »

gpm wrote: post #106
jmvoodoo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not harmful to sea life then a great potential market for this would be marine toilets. They all use extremely small amounts of water (especially the freshwater ones) and skid marks are always a problem. Boaters are also used to maintaining things like coating. Smaller market but a good niche to start and spread from.

Why do salt water marine toilets use small amounts of water? It seems like that's a resource that is very easy to acquire.

The water and waste are pumped into a holding tank that needs to be emptied. You can empty it into the ocean if you are 3 miles off shore. Most people stay close to shore, so need to use pump out facilities to empty their holding tank. These are often free but not always, and from my understanding are not entirely pleasant to use.

Typical holding tank volume is 20-30 gallons. This is maybe enough for a week? We have a composting head so I'm not sure. Solid waste goes in a dumpster once a month and I think most people end up "peeing in the water". Which is technically illegal and some people think is bad, some don't.

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