When we are convenient on the toilet, we often encounter the embarrassment of having "residue" on the toilet. They are so strong with ceramic veneers that 502 glue can't match them. To avoid this embarrassment, some people have to look into anti-ergonomic tricks to try to get the poop to fall vertically into the water, but this again brings the problem of splashing. Of course, you might say that if you are good at putting paper in the toilet, this problem can be solved. It is true that toilet paper can help us withstand the first round of attack, but it cannot withstand the second and third rounds of onslaught. Today, when non-stick cookware has been popularized into thousands of households, we can't help but ask, when was the non-stick toilet invented?
As we know, non-stick pans are essentially sprayed with a layer of non-stick paint with Teflon as the main raw material on the surface of the metal pan body. So, isn't putting a layer of Teflon on the toilet bowl to serve our purpose? In fact, some people have been doing this for a long time. When you step into the toilet of the high-speed train and the airplane, you will not be able to imagine that the black and gray layer of the toilet bowl is the same thing as the inner wall of your non-stick pan.
Data shows that in the case of high-frequency use, the Teflon coating on the pot usually has a lifespan of only two or three years. And people obviously go to the toilet more often than cooking. Due to high-frequency use, Teflon applied to the toilet bowl can be damaged more quickly than the walls of the pot, resulting in stain blind spots.
In order to solve the problem of "sticky buckets" in toilets, scientists have invested a lot of energy in finding new materials that are really suitable for toilets. Professor Huang Desheng of the Nature Inspiration Engineering Laboratory of Pennsylvania State University in the United States led a research team to draw inspiration from Nepenthes and develop an "ultra-slippery coating".
The inner wall of the pitcher plant cage resembles a toilet bowl
The inner wall of the toilet bowl made with this coating is truly "non-sticking" and can reduce the amount of water used in a single flush by at least half. In a paper published in Nature Sustainability, they named the coating liquid-entrenched smooth surface, which translates to liquid-fixed smooth surface. The English abbreviation is also quite apt: LESS.
The LESS coating used by the researchers consists of two coatings, which require two sprays when used. The first layer of spray forms a base layer connected to the flush toilet, which is a layer of protruding "nanohairs", each 1 billion times thinner than a human hair. On top of this base layer, a second spray fills the voids between the "nanohairs", creating an extremely smooth and fine surface that makes it easier for liquids, sludge and bacteria to slip off. The entire spraying process of LESS's two-layer paint takes no more than five minutes, and ordinary households can use it on their own. In the past, similar materials took several hours, and the ease of spraying has become an advantage of LESS.
Two coats of paint from LESS
Scientists have successively tested water, artificial mixed feces, and real feces on the inner wall of toilets made with this coating, and found that the LEES coating can reduce the adhesion of viscoelastic fluids such as feces by about 90%, and basically achieve "non-sticking". However, this coating is not permanently effective. While the first coat of paint does not come off, the second coat only lasts 500 times. For a family of four, the second coat needs to be repainted about every two weeks.
On the official website, such a 30ml bottle of paint costs $15
So, is there a "once and for all" solution to this problem? Su Bin's team, a mainland scientist from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, also drew inspiration from the microstructure of the inner wall of the pitcher plant's insect trap and decided to start with the toilet itself. Using a mixture of plastic and special sand grains as raw materials, they 3D printed a model of a toilet bowl that is 1/10 the size of a normal toilet.
The 3D-printed toilet bowl is made from a mixture of plastic and hydrophobic sand material, which are chemically sintered together layer by layer instead of melting together. Therefore, in this process, a porous structure is formed inside the toilet bowl with many small gaps. Thanks to this structure, the lubricating oil can fully enter the complex voids of the toilet bowl. And the advantage of this is not only smooth, but also very durable. If the lubricating oil on the surface is lost, the oil in the internal pores will be quickly replenished, so that the toilet bowl will always remain ultra-slippery. Even a strong scrub with a toilet brush can be repaired quickly under strong mechanical wear.
The wear is too severe, just make up the lubricating oil in time
Of course, this kind of toilet is still a long way from entering our lives, because it is necessary to print out the actual size of the toilet first, and then reduce the manufacturing cost.
You may also wonder, what is the significance of this study? Is it just to avoid embarrassment and to never have to use the toilet again? In fact, more importantly, it is very water-efficient, it can minimize water consumption, and alleviate the problem of severe water scarcity in some parts of the world.
According to the statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics of the mainland, the mainland in 2015 the annual domestic water consumption is close to 80 billion cubic meters, of which the toilet water accounted for 10%, of which, a large part of the waste is wasted on flushing stubborn poop, if the really long-term smooth toilet comes out, the water saved will be a staggering number. Hopefully, that day will come sooner rather than later, and that day will also be a day when the toilet brush will find another way out.
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