Just Put on Your Jeans and Reduce the Pollution
Here at fossBytes, we provide all our readers an insight into the future technology and here we are with something really new and amazing for you. Soon we will be having clothes that can purify the air. That means your clothes can help tackle with air pollution. This vision was shared by the founders of Catalytic Clothing, namely, Professor Tony Ryan, a scientist from the University of Sheffield and Professor Helen Storey, a designer and artist from the London College of Fashion. They are working together to create a fabric additive that can break down the harmful pollutants in the air.
What is Catalytic Clothing??
In one way, it’s recycling of a technology that exists in toothpaste and sunscreens. The additive is going to be a piece of nanotechnology. It contains nano-particles of Titanium dioxide which act as a catalyst (even finer than thousand times a human hair). When light hits these particles, they turn to action. They react with oxygen to make peroxide bleach, which in turn, reacts with air pollutants such as nitric oxide (a common city air pollutant, aggravating asthma and other respiratory diseases) and breaks them down.
This technology opens doors to an entirely new form of fabrics while the additive is having even greater potential. It just needs only to be on the surface which means you don’t really need it to embed in fibers. It’s easy to turn the existing fabrics into a brand new piece of this technology. The founders see laundry as one way to do it as everyone washes their clothes there.
Well, if you’re worried that your wardrobe is going to turn full of pollutants which may be dangerous considering health and hygiene. The founders even have answers to this. The pollutants aren’t absorbed into the fabric. The pollutants, when come across the fabric are broken down into less harmful things. Moreover, sunshine is the most ideal light source to start the reaction but interior lamp lights will also have an effect. So, overcast and cloudy days have no problem at all.
Jeans have been the main focus for catalytic clothing as they are widely popular and the science behind this says that the particles bind well with cotton denims. According to the founders, 4 people wearing catalyzed jeans in a day would neutralize the nitric oxide produced by a car and 25 people wearing these jeans would undo the damage done in a day by a bus. That means the more people walking on the streets in catalyzed clothes, the less pollution there will be.
What is its future?
Although, at the moment these pollution-bursting fabrics are commercially unavailable, yet it is being estimated that it could be in the market within a year or even less than that. The founders say that there are many companies that are looking forward to it. This project is going to be great as in the future we don’t have to worry for the rising pollution levels. All that we need to do is to wear catalyzed clothes and that’s it- you are contributing to make the air better and fresh and good.
Via: Catalytic-clothing.com
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