Monitor
Washing without water
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Environment: A washing machine uses thousands of nylon beads, and just a cup of water, to provide a greener way to do the laundry

Xeros

Water? Who needs it?
SYNTHETIC fibres tend to make low quality clothing. But one of the properties that makes nylon a poor choice of fabric for a shirt, namely its ability to attract and retain dirt and stains, is being exploited by a company that has developed a new laundry system. Its machine uses no more than a cup of water to wash each load of fabrics and uses much less energy than conventional devices.

The system developed by Xeros, a spin-off from the University of Leeds, in England, uses thousands of tiny nylon beads each measuring a few millimetres across. These are placed inside the smaller of two concentric drums along with the dirty laundry, a squirt of detergent and a little water. As the drums rotate, the water wets the clothes and the detergent gets to work loosening the dirt. Then the nylon beads mop it up.

The crystalline structure of the beads endows the surface of each with an electrical charge that attracts dirt. When the beads are heated in humid conditions to the temperature at which they switch from a crystalline to an amorphous structure, the dirt is drawn into the core of the bead, where it remains locked in place.


The inner drum, containing the clothes and the beads, has a small slot in it. At the end of the washing cycle, the outer drum is halted and the beads fall through the slot; some 99.95% of them are collected.

Because so little water is used and the warm beads help dry the laundry, less tumble drying is needed. An environmental consultancy commissioned by Xeros to test its system reckoned that its carbon footprint was 40% smaller than the most efficient existing systems for washing and drying laundry.

The first machines to be built by Xeros will be aimed at commercial cleaners and designed to take loads of up to 20 kilograms. Customers will still be able to use the same stain treatments, bleaches and fragrances that they use with traditional laundry systems. Nylon may be nasty to wear, but it scrubs up well inside a washing machine.

http://www.economist.com/...d=14299614

when mankind wants to accomplish something, he/she can.

like traveling to the moon...inventing something to clean clothes w/1 cup of water....

Come to think of it, it may also be possible to put them in apartments. One cup of water doesn't need it's own line. Just a tray to catch it and a place to put it in.
That would be a big improvement. A washer you can move with and not worry about a hook up, just having the space. Without needing gallons of water, they should also be smaller.
[Edited 9/6/09 18:06pm]

What is that smell?

....clothes washed in beads.

No thanks.

SUPRMAN said:

That would be really cool.

This is cool in some ways. Saves resources, and I suppose the cleaning of very heavily soiled items could still be outsourced.

But dirty fabrics aren't just visibly soiled. They have germs. Does this procedure have some sort of sterilizing capacity on par with, say, immersion in very hot water mixed with an antibacterial detergent?

Lammastide said:

Washing and drying doesn't actually sterilize clothes. Unless you use bleach, and even then, as soon as you touch them with your hands they have germs again. What's important is to remove the bacteria food (oils, spills) from the clothes to keep them from multiplying and making an odor.

I have to smell the clothes after wards to agree with this or not.

tackam said:

Yeah, I didn't mean full-on sterilization in the truest sense. But the agitation through hot water and antibacterial agents can remove a decent share of "bugs" -- at least for a short time. I wonder if these beads do an equal job of it.
[Edited 9/7/09 8:49am]

People have their clothes dry cleaned all the time. What's the difference?

I'd try it.

The remaining .05 of the beads gets picked up (as lint) in the dryer I suppose?

johnart said:

Or you'd just shake your clothes out afterward, I guess. And apparently you'd have to buy a box of bead "refills" every so often, maybe?

Lammastide said:

Why wouldn't it removed the bacteria with the dirt just like water does?
You do add detergent and can add bleach, so it should still clean them.

Lammastide said:

And of course, no one would trust the 'recommended' number of washes before replacing the beads.
Hmm, can they be recycled?

joseph8 said:

You still add detergent . . .

Vendetta1 said:

Dry clean is worse because your cloths are actually soaked in a liquid solution--it's just not water. It's a chemical bath, essentially.