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MIT Creates Superhydrophobic Condiment Bottles
An anonymous reader writes "First we had a superhydrophobic spray that meant no dirt or sweat could stick to your clothes. Then a hydrophobic nanocoating was created for circuit boards to make them water resistant. Now MIT has gone a step further and solved one of the ongoing problems of using condiments: they've figured out how to make a food-safe superhydrophobic coating for food packaging. It means ketchup and mayonnaise will no longer be stuck to the insides of the bottle, and therefore there will no longer be any waste. What's amusing is this seems to be a happy accident. The MIT team was actually investigating slippery coatings to stop gas and oil lines clogging as well as how to stop a surface from having ice form on it. Now their lab is filled with condiments for continued testing of their food-safe version."
then either give it a good shake, or store it for next time
Is it durable enough to be used on washless or "rinse-off" dishes? Also possible application as a coating on bathroom fixtures, or perhaps applied to the inside of wax paper bags so the icing stays on my take-out snax.. come to think of it toothpaste tubes and racing swimsuits. Let alone the prank potential!
This stuff should probably be shipped in double walled tanker trucks.. hate to see what it does when spilt on a roadway.
Need superhydrophobic keyboards.
And curiously, a radio ad I hear a lot lately is starts off about the super-high-tech drains that can't clog. Then it goes on to say that those drains don't exist and pimps a drain-cleaning company.
So how long will it be before we have superhyrdophobic sewer pipe?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
...but I definitely have a fear of consuming or inhaling anything nano-particle based. But, I also think it's insane that we have no long term medical studies...of anything really.
I wonder what this stuff is. It's pretty easy to silylate vast quantities of glassware in a vacuum oven with hexamethyldisilazane. Water beads up on the glass after treatment. It's covalent so it doesn't wash off unless you add something to dissolve the glass. Glass surfaces act sort of like an iPad. Maybe that's what they do to it to give it that greasy feel.
Of course, the article provided a wealth of chemical information as one would expect.
Now the product will cost more to use this technology. Don't worry, you'll still be getting the same 8 ounces of product, but it's okay that they charge you more because you'll finally be able to use all 8oz!
... but it's not, not to the people running the companies that sell the condiments and spec the packaging. They WANT people to waste the product, because that means the companies can sell more, and it's far cheaper for those companies to make more than it is for consumers to waste it. Guess who winds up profiting from the waste?
Another example: something so mundane as toothpaste. For decades there have been TV commercials and print ads depicting actors using completely obscene amounts of the stuff, literally an order of magnitude more than is required for an effective result. Colgate and other companies have been encouraging that waste for decades, and that stuff has consequences when it winds up in bodies of water. I also suspect there was a bit of sinister collaboration in the design of at least one electric toothbrush, again intended to manipulate people to use more toothpaste than required: one model originally had just the useful rotating circular head, but then later added a fixed-bristle region adjacent for - you guessed it - holding more toothpaste.
The final insult: at least one of those makers decided to tinker with the diameter of the toothpaste tube opening, which had been a de facto standard for decades. I have a backpacking/travel toothbrush that I bought in the Eighties, which included its own mini-tube that had to be refilled by screwing a tube of toothpaste into one end and squeezing; this was only made feasible because all tubes of toothpaste used exactly the same opening diameter and thread spacing. Fast forward to 2010 and my purchase of toothpaste made by Church-Dwight, and my subsequent angry discovery that they had increased the diameter of the tube opening such that it no longer fit my old travel toothbrush. Now why would they increase the diameter of the opening? It couldn't possibly have anything to do with promoting incidental waste and selling more tubes of product, could it?
I'm a perennial cynic and skeptic, but I doubt these superhydrophobic containers will ever be used for condiments. Not only would the more expensive packaging cut into profits, the reduced waste would make a dent in them, too.
It happens by accident.
Wonder if it would keep fingerprints off my phone screen.
and now less sticky.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Now all we need to do is get rid of those silly bottles that don't fit in the fridge, take up too much shipping space getting to the stores and clog up the recycling system. Instead we could use simple plastic bags (just like in Russia) that conveniently fit in any free space in the fridge, and don't waste space. Also, you cut the hole in the corner with scissors so you can choose how big it is (and therefore how fast it is dispensed). The bags could be biodegradable (or recyclable in bulk like paper is).
There are lots of business opportunities waiting for clever business people that travel to the former Soviet Union and think a bit about what they see. This way of dispensing mayonnaise, ketchup, yogurt and so on, makes it easy for small convenience stores to stock it all (small amount of space) which means that people don't have to drive a gas guzzler (any gasoline powered car) to do their shopping.
Super Hydrophobalistic Condimental Bottles,
The glass inside remains so clean just like the twelve apostles,
From them ketchup flows so fast you'll need to use some throttles,
Super Hydrophobalistic Condimental Bottles!
(to the tune of...)
I've started storing everything in glass.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Hmm... serendipity seems to be a central theme to research in chemistry and material sciences.
Why is this story under idle?
more useless plastics that don't deterioration...
So what would this do to the ability to recycle the materials? A general rule is that recyclers want you to clean glass (rightly so, as ketchup turns to pretty much carbon at the 2000 deg F required to melt glass, thus spoiling the recyc batch), but what would this do under intense heat?
This sig no verb.
Anyone else picture Chevy Chase beginning his sledding run in Christmas Vacation?
Very cool stuff, I did a small presentation on this technology in college.
Seems like an Eureka episode waiting to happen...
I would love to see sardines cans with a BPA-free liner where the fish scoots right out without having to bang the can around upside down while spraying stinky fish oil all over the counter-top.
The last large sardine in my can today had such incredible BPA suction I had to pitchfork it out. Even after I slid it around, it still didn't peel off when inverted.
Health studies usually report that the benefits of high omega-3 diets outweigh the notorious toxins also contained.
Finally, I'll be able to get my ketchup out of the bottle.
TFA is much funnier if you substitute "condoms" for "condiments".
I wonder if this would make a slip-n-slide more painful, or less?
I need this. You have 6 months to get it to me. I'll finally be able to break 60 mph even on sierra cement
This is great. I've always wanted to chug-a-lug catchup.
Building 57(!) is an old Heinz factory
MIT is no stranger to ketchup
Now if they could only come up with a coating to keep peanut butter from sticking to the roof of your mouth, and keep biscuits and gravy from sticking to your ribs...
http://www.foodfacts.com/NutritionFacts/Regular-Mayo/Hellmans-Easy-Out-Non-Stick-Mayonnaise-22-oz/58020
Wonder if you could use this to line arteries and coat stents
Why the hell would they put super rabies in condiment bottles? I already get enough froth from the damned ketchup and mustard bottles when I first use them. Stupid researchers.
In the distance you hear an ominous moo.
All of that waste is product consumers buy, but can't consume. So it doesn't put off the next time they buy more. There's no way condiment bottlers are going to use this invention that means you'll buy replacements less often.
--
make install -not war
John Smith was tragically killed today, smothered by ketchup after applying more than the recommended force. Manufacturers of the superhydrophobic coating for condiment bottles will now be required to place warnings directing users to face the spout of the bottles away from their faces. The Department of Defense is currently investigating resurrecting the Land Warrior initiative, based around these bottles.
With the world careening through a substantial and difficult global climate change, I know I will sleep soundly at night, knowing that the horror of condiment waste is being worked on by some of the best minds in the business.
I'm thinking veins and arteries, material for artificial hearts etc.
Aperture Science called, they want their stuff back MIT.
...a requirement in the manufacture of White House intern uniforms.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
problem solved
Salad dressing with rabies? DO NOT WANT.
(Not sure if this an urban myth)
Long time ago, a worker at a big toothpaste manufacturer made a suggestion:
"Why not increase the diameter of the toothpaste nozzle?"
See, people put on toothpaste on their toothbrushes based on the LENGTH not VOLUME of the paste. By increasing the diameter or width of the applied toothpaste, the consumer would use up much more of the toothpaste with every application. Thus they would use up the toothpaste more quickly (and since it's not a high cost expense, be unlikely to be tracking it closely). Thus sales and profits would go up.
Supposedly this man was given a nice corner office for life.
Take a pill (or drink) of this stuff right before a meal. Food would just fly right through.
Then again, it could give a whole new meaning to "having the runs".
It could make cleaning less frequent and onerous.
If it were dishwasher safe could be used on dishes and cookware.
I'm sure there must be a million applications for a durable, super hydrophobic coating. Ship hulls, runners on skates and skis, hell if it's durable (and safe enough) why not a spray on for a once a year application at your dentist? Who knows what other applications coud be practical depending on its exact properties (think, ink jet printers, coating the particles in e-ink displays to make them "spin" faster, micro fluidics for lab equipment, etc.). There are a LOT of technologies that use water/fluids in some way.
We've found a way that you can make really expensive bottles which let people use all of the ketchup, so they won't have to buy as much from you. As a bonus, it screw up plastic recycling. So, how many million units can we sign you up for?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Ketchup should come in a spraycan. Imagine how much more fun mealtimes would be, if they can do it with cheese why not Ketchup.
Toilets, Car windscreens, Swimgoogles, Camera lenses,
And once upon a time, Teflon was considered completely inert. And a few generations earlier: asbestos.
The Heinz Fortune Revealed! Kerry rejoices (and skips taxes on his boat)
Why is no one discussing water park slides?!
I'm curious what this stuff would do to my sailing boat frictionwise and would it work as an antifouling aswell.
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
the heinz 57 bottle is specificaly designed so that a slap on the bottom with a palm punches out a dollop of sauce so that you can sauce a line of burgers quickly and uniformly.
Will something like this help to get that last bit of toothpaste out of the toothpaste tube?
So we want to use nanotechnology to get the last of the ketchup out of the bottle... to assimilate it... I'm pretty sure that's how the Borg got started.
Just say'n. Then LiquiGlide coated bed sheets and a little body oil. OMG. Can't wait!!
It all starts at 0
if you click on the link in the article, you get taken to a useless page at geek.com which takes you to a useless page at fastcoexist.com which takes you to a useless page set up by the inventors, liqui-glide.com
If you try and connect and get some real info, Prof Varanasi at MIT has a list of publications, no pdfs for recent ones, and his lab wepage is ddos/ slashdotted.
So in regard to an important quesstion - how do we know about food safety - the answer is all info is proprietary or unkown /.
way to go,
I grew up near Alfred University, not far from Corning, NY. In addition to such things as space shuttle tiles and coal slurry, researchers there developed a glass with these exact properties, and tried to license it to Heinz. Much to their dismay, Heinz turned it down, as they were just about to launch an ad campaign demonstrating the superior quality of their high viscosity ketchup compared to cheaper brands, which could be poured from the bottle without smacking it.
That's badass except it's not at the same time because A) It will come out in the news 6 months after mass production that this stuff kills people B) It will make all condiments more expensive and sorry but Franks and shit is already overpriced.
That all of the relevant jokes have already been made.
But it would be really nice for recycling!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
There is already a diarrhea diet pill. And a fry oil too. Remember those fat free Olean potato chips?
turning a research budget into food. First instance I know of was around 1970: testing the black stuff on a grilled steak for carcinogenicity.
The article didn't mention that the new coating was made from a platinum/gold latticed alloy.
I wonder what it would be like to have it smoothed over the bottom of a snow saucer . . . even higher flames than Clark Griswold's?!
~~ GIJ (a.k.a "Anonymous Coward" [hahahaha])