Chemist claims to have discovered soap-free cleaning

Chemistry professor Richard Pashley says he's found a way to clean clothes without using soap.  The key to his discovery is a process called "de-gassing", which removes air particles from the water.  Once de-gassed, the water can apparently remove even the toughest stains, without using an ounce of detergent. Right now, the water can only be de-gassed by freezing it in liquid nitrogen (not exactly practical for soccer moms or college dorm residents), but Pashley plans to develop semipermeable membranes, similiar to those used on oil rigs, that will de-gass water as it passes through.

[Via TRFJ]

[Cambob @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

Can I hook it up to my ipod. man i loves them ipods.

[AznFX @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

so it just brings whatever is in the water out into solution?

why can they use normal distilled water if wut they sounds like is wut i think they said

[Ricky @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

I wonder if those membranes will be able to de-gass my girlfriend?

[Ignite++ @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

or my dog
my dog gets the worst gas because of her anti-convulsion meds

[aprodite @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

I remember a few years ago another scientist had developed a soapless way of cleaning clothes using ultrasound.

I haven't heard anything more about it. Maybe the soap companies kidnapped him. ;)

[010111 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

speaking of iPods... the design of that washer was *clearly* heavily influenced by the iPod. it's white. and has a circle shape on it. seems like the iPod is truly affecting all levels of modern industrial design.

but i can't believe they couldn't come up with something just a little more original and a little less likely to get them sued out of business by Apple legal.

i'm surprised they didn't just call it the iWash. unoriginal bastards.

[404 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

This Pashley guy was in the news a couple of years back.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3408

Essentially he is back in the news for the same discovery. Since the only thing soap really does is allow the oils to dissolve in water (the same process that holds a hotdog together), the de-gassed water does the same thing.

Cool that he is proposing an actual use for this technology but its sounds more marketing garbage than actual science at this point...I still sorta wonder how corrosive this stuff is.

[james @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

freezing water with liquid nitrogen is impractical for college dorm residents? surely you have never been to an engineering college dorm then.

anyway, what do college dorm residents ever do that is practical?

[Phil @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

This washer has some of the more recent advances in washing technology:

http://www.greenbison.com/washer/3d-soul.htm
If you read it all, especially the part about ultrasound, it almost seems like overkill.

For the de-gassed washer, I wonder how it disinfects clothes. Does the de-gassed water dissolve the bacterial cell wall (composed of saccarides and peptides)? Because you'd have to get through that before you got to the oils, or lipids.

phil
http://philcopper.com

[Seth @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

This isn't news. I've been using http://tinyurl.com/6woou [www.gaiam.com] for about two years now.

[Guido @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

So liquid nitrogen is not practical for soccer moms, but membranes only found in oil rigs are the smart practical and ubiquitous solution? :)

[Brian Erst @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

Seth -

Those cleaning disks are a scam.

http://www.laundry-alternative.com/disks.html

Unless you have really dirty clothes, rinsing and twisting them (i.e., using only water in a washing machine) will get them "clean". Most of the dirt you come into daily contact with is highly water soluble, so the rinsing action will sweep it away. Even light amounts of oil-based stuff will rinse out in hot water. The laundry disk is basically inert - it's just taking up room.

But none of that actually gets the clothes really clean (free of bacteria and grime). Try putting a white shirt stained by a pizza in with one of those gizmos - the stain will be there for you to admire when you're done.

[hersko @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

This might be a stupid question, but what's wrong with using soap?

[John Davies @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

hersko-

>>This might be a stupid question, but what's wrong with using soap?

Maybe you should ask a Frenchman.

[Fabulo @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

>>This might be a stupid question, but what's wrong with using soap?

Soap is not the most environment-friendly thing. (read: pollution) but so far it's the best way to dissolve oils in water.

De-gassed water sounds like vaporware though.

[Vanilla Spice @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

Oils do not dissolve into water - but they can form a water-oil emulsion.

And allowing a water-oil emulsion to form is NOT all that soaps do, their hydrophilic/hydrophobic "dumbell" molecular form uses agitation in the water to physically work its way underneath dirt and oil, removing it from the garment, and allowing the water to carry it away.

Finally, de-gassed water is not vaporware - it was recently demonstrated that, despite the proverb, oil and water can mix quite well, provided you use de-gassed water. This was widely reported on most news outlets.

[bhix @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

>>De-gassed water sounds like vaporware though.

I don't how it could be vapor if its 'de-gassed'. Sounds pretty solid to me.

[Middle school teacher @ Dec 19th 2005 2:13AM]

Um... I was using degassed solvents for years as a chemist, ever since I first started working in the lab in 1998. The method used back them was semi-permeable glass filter discs. We had to do this because our pumps and solvent lines would get damaged if the gas came out of solution during a pressure change.

The more polar the solvent, the longer it took to degass the solvent, probably because the solvent has an affinity for glass, which is also highly polar. Is this group trying to develop a filter which works better?

BTW - Detergents often don't clean clothes as well as we think they do. They contain flourescent dyes that cause clothes to look really white. That's why clothes, printer paper, and other treated white objects glow under ultraviolet radiation ("black light").