EDITOR’S NOTE: Hit play before reading.
One of life’s little mysteries (up there with the hot dug bun/hot dog packaging disproportion conundrum) is why they put shampoo and detergent in bottles that are impossible to get all the shampoo and detergent out of.
Sure, combining the last few drops of the good stuff with water and getting at it that way kinda works, in the same way that water + Robitussin = more ‘Tussin.
But damn it, you paid for it. Them shits is expensive. Stop trying to short change us, Johnson & Johnson. You keep saying “no more tears” but you didn’t account for the one’s in our *HEARTS*.
Fortunately for us all, science is (yet again) coming to the rescue.
Scientists working at the Ohio State University in the US have been working for around a decade on bio-surfaces, and have developed a new material that repels even the stickiest of liquids such as shampoo and detergent.
The problem with shampoos and detergents is that they have been specifically designed to lower surface tension on any liquid that they come into contact with; which helps them, y’know, clean shit.
Problem is that same design is what makes them so danged sticky and hard to fully extract from bottles. The new surface design pioneered by Ohio State researches takes inspiration from the design of the lotus leaf, which is noted for its ability to repel water.
Scientists took the pre-existing polypropylene shampoo bottles and applied a solvent containing mixed silica nanoparticles. The solvent softens and dissolves the surface of the plastic, and the nanoparticles attach themselves to the surface, creating air-pocket patterns that are similar in design to those on a lotus leaf. The decreased surface tension means that even liquids like detergent or shampoo simply skid off the dang things like they weren’t even there.
That being said, this research is in its early stages, and observations made over time showed that the surface got less effective the more it was used, meaning more work is gonna need to be done before we’ll see the glorious, shampoo-efficient utopia we all so desperately crave.
But still, it’s good to know that science is sick of dicking about when it comes to bathroom products.
Making the world a better place, one shower at a time.
Source: ABC News.
