Whether it's the coating the toilets that can slide poo and minimise water wastage or a spray that prevents clothes from getting stained when you drop something on them.
Reuters/ ACS
However, now researchers have made something that will keep your building walls new forever, sort of.
First reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, scientist Xin Xu and his colleagues have created a special kind of concrete that possesses self-cleaning properties that repel water and other kinds of dust particles. Basically, the surface of this concrete is superhydrophobic.?
Usual hydrophobic solutions are known to wear off with wear with climate or otherwise. To make it last longer, researchers added a special kind of oil, an emulsifier, a hydrophobic silicone polymer called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS for short) right into a concrete mixture. Thanks to the emulsifier, the oil formed tiny droplets that contained the hydrophobic PDMS. Researchers then dried and heated the concrete to eliminate the oil to only keep the PDMS pores behind.
This resulted in a porous concrete that was lightweight but at the same time strong enough. It was able to repel dust particles and a wide variety of liquids like water, soy sauce, coffee, milk. Researchers even tried immersing the concrete in liquids with no stains remaining on the concrete whatsoever.?
Reuters
Now in case you were wondering if the concrete would lose its hydrophobic-ness when it is cut or tampered with, but the fun thing is that it doesn't. What's more is that it possesses the two most crucial features necessary for being used as a building material -- the material is capable of absorbing sound with ease and it also shows insulation against heat loss, which is a boon in locations with cold climate.?