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Scientists Discover a Way To Get Every Last Drop of Ketchup Out of the Bottle (bbc.com)
Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes a report from BBC: Scientists in Boston have found a way to get every last drop of ketchup out of the bottle. They have developed a coating that makes bottle interiors super slippery. The coating can also be used to make it easier to squeeze out the contents of other containers, such as those holding toothpaste, cosmetics and even glue. The researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe that their innovation could dramatically reduce waste. In its manufacture, the container must first be coated on the inside with a rough surface. A very thin layer is then placed over this. And, finally, a liquid is added that fills in any troughs to form a very slippery surface -- like an oily floor. The ketchup hovers on top and just glides out of the bottle. According to Prof Kripa Varanasi, who developed the slippery surface, the technology is completely safe. "The cool thing about it is that because the coating is a composite of solid and liquid, it can be tailored to the product. So for food, we make the coating out of food-based materials and so you can actually eat it."
schwit1 adds: "Pretty slick."
schwit1 adds: "Pretty slick."
by increasing materials used to prevent that waste.
Sounds legit.
It's really nice to see all this Science and Technology used to get a better world! /. article for it!
And a
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I bet it gives you cancer.
They dont want you to get that stuff out... on every 20bottles sold thats one extra bottle worth of products. Why to opt to make less money? Same as car manufacturers dont want to make a car that cant be stolen..
This news goes back to at least 2012. See http://www.geek.com/geek-pick/mit-creates-superhydrophobic-coating-for-condiment-bottles-1491587/
...from the news from five years ago?
http://www.packagingnews.co.uk/news/nano-coating-ketchup-bottle-23-05-2012
...that will never work. That would cost more to manufacture, and you would sell less bottles as you would squeeze more out of each. I cannot see how the manufacturers would be interested in that.
It has been doing the rounds since at least 2012. It was news back then. It's not news now.
Sounds great but can you recycle a plastic container with this treatment?
Just add some olive oil - shake the bottle real hard?
Yes, we can! Just put a stamp on the bottle and mail it to Hillary Clinton. I'm with her!
The cost benefits of getting the last few milligrams of product out of the bottle is being negated by the energy expenditures of repeating the "THIS IS NEW" news stories and public commentary over the past ten years.
They never tell you the details in the media sources for the masses. Also, there were no references presented in this story to something more definitive. Right out of the bat I was concerned about whether or not this is based on nanotechnology, because we already have super-slick surfaces there. Not sure if I want to eat nanotech.
Rather than working on ways to continue the level of waste we produce, why not make more products refillable? Toothpaste, lotion, ointments, whatever. Instead of putting them in the same old plastic squeeze tubes put them in serine-like tubes than can be opened, cleaned out and refilled. The was a high end toothpaste called Rembrandt that came in an upright bottle that when you push down on it the paste would dispense from the top. The bottle was hard plastic that was made of two parts. It wasn't refillable but it didn't seem like a stretch to make it so. I can see taking the empty container back to the store to be refilled for less then the full price. Reduce and save money.
than the old ones it'd work just fine. A huge part of supermarket sales is perceived value vs actual value. e.g. people paying an extra $0.50 cents for $0.10 cents worth of ketchup but thinking they just got a bargain.
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Manufacturers make money by selling stuff, repeatedly. The fact that you buy a bottle of ketchup and that you cannot use every last drop of it is your problem, not the manufacturers. In fact, if you could use more of what you bought then you would buy less of it and that means in economic terms that (a) consumer gets more product, (b) manufacturer gets less revenue *and* more costs as they now need to coat the inside of the bottle. It may have its uses, but absolutely not in the FMCG (Faast Moving Consumer Goods) segment
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I first heard about these magic ketchup bottles 5, 6 years ago. Is this really that slow a news day?
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Used to work in a deli with ketchup bottles on all the tables. At the end of the day we would turn the near empty bottles upside down overnight, draining them into a fuller bottle. In the monring the drained bottled were completely empty. Patience and gravity works every time.
All these 2 material containers usually are a nightmare to recycle.
You'll save 1 cent in ketchup and loose 20 in order to separate the layers, or most likely you'll send the whole thing to a country that don't have many environmental laws.
I'd rather loose a few drops now and then...
I'm not even speaking about toxicity ....
Is the coating itself safe? We come out with "magic" materials all the time and then predictably find out later on that they have all sorts of horribly toxic side effects. Getting all the ketchup out of the bottle falls pretty low on my list of things I give a shit about.
because throwing a tablespoon of catsup (or ketchup) away in an almost empty bottle is such a crime and a waste
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Isn't this old news? I saw this at least a year ago.
"According to Prof Kripa Varanasi, who developed the slippery surface, the technology is completely safe."
Generally we don't/shouldn't rely on the creator's word to vouch for the ultimate safely of products, particularly ingested chemicals...
-Styopa
This gets reposted every few months.
See this article from July, 2016, about such research at Ohio State University.
masturbation workout?
Here, step back from that one tree and see the forest.
The PoC was using ketchup and mayonnaise bottles. The real application is coating the interiors of pipelines and containment vessels, i.e. manufacturing, distribution.
If you're a ketchup manufacturer, and your raw goods are in vessels coated with this, as well as transfer piping, you recoup all of that material loss.
If you're a refinery, your crude just got a lot easier to move.
The consumer-facing application is just a means to differentiate your stupid product from everyone else's. Given the choice between a tube of toothpaste that requires strongman grip strength to fully utilize, or one that practically falls out... well, with the aging world population, this is easy to see as a marketing coup.
--#
Been squeezing almost every bit of toothpaste out of those tubes since I was a kid. They're also probably cheaper to manufacture than ketchup bottles, so the bottom line profits would improve. Heck, fast food ketchup packets have been around for years and I can get every last drop out of those too.
dont make fun of my friend goatz and youfailiT
Can it be applied to ceramic surfaces?
I'm looking forward to the /. post announcing the invention of a means to blow-mold an inside surface with a rough texture.
I just cut the bottle open when it's almost empty and get everything out.
I see no reason for food and/or the personal care industry would want this. It just means their customers would buy their product less frequently. So, the only way this will find its way into use, is if regulators require it. That would require them to be more concerned about their constituents, than the companies. Since when has that happened?
Put the bottle in the fridge upside down, numbnuts
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Some do care. They add a few drops of warm water to the nearly empty bottle, shake well and get a thinner ketchup out into a bowl. They shake/squeeze the next bottle on top of this to "hide" the thinner ketchup, and mix it with a fork from the kids.
Some care even more and they routinely pilfer ketch up packets from every fast food place they enter. They never go through drive through. They go in to get their hands on the goodies. The map pockets on their car door would have paper napkins from these places, their kitchen drawer will be brimming with an assortment of ketchup and sauce packets from Taco Bell and McDonolds.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Toto has http://www.totousa.com/people-first-innovation/peopleplanetwater/cefiontect that's been an optional upgrade for more than 10 years. Toilets with that really do require less frequent cleaning.
That is changing the bottle. Put the ketchup in a bag if its that important to you.
This is old news, these types of coatings have been around for years.
This "coating" is already outdated, since bottle companies are working on plastics that basically do this without any additional coatings.
And they're already partly there: if you look at ketchup bottles in (US) stores you can see that the ketchup does all slide to the bottom now.
The sliding doesn't happen real fast but it works. And nobody wants the whole bottle to come gushing out at once anyway.
There are scientists for ketchup??
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What's this yellow stain on your lab gown?
Are you leaving us for the competition?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
The "non-caloric, silicon-based, kitchen lubricant" was already invented decades ago and has been documented in use for breaking the world record for downhill sledding.
Already achieved the desired goal years ago!--Way ahead of you MIT! I will never give up my Ketchup bottle centrifuge! NEVER!!!
Ketchup becomes thinner when you hit the bottom bottle with the bottom of your hand. Some shampoos and detergents does this too.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I remember reading this *exact* story here on /.about five years ago.
See also this slashdot article from 2015 about the exact same technology:
https://science.slashdot.org/s...
Apparently the reason it's in the news is that LiquiGlide (a company Prof. Varanasi co-founded, though it's not mentioned in the newer article) just went through (or is in the middle of?) a new round of venture funding.
So they had working technology for sale two years ago but now they want it to be news again, because marketing.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Yeah, so we add this stuff, and that means you won't waste this other stuff.
a) I trust the new stuff is cheaper than the ketchup itself -- and by cheaper, I mean cradle-to-grave with the machine, the material, the shipping of the material, and the invention efforts too.
b) I really don't care about the last half-penny of ketchup in the three-dollar bottle.
c) water works when cooking with ketchup
d) time works, and looks cool
e) this was never anyone's problem!
Because it won't be for free nor be cheap.
I saw this in my Grandparents. People who lived through the Great Depression, they were marked by the experience. They never thought about the world the same way again.
My Grandma would talk about "Hard times", and this was an ever-present possibility in her mind. Hard times could come at any time and you needed to be aware of that. The funny thing was, Grandma and Grandpa spent their last decades in clover, they never had it so good. But they never allowed themselves to think that way.
Hard times could be right around the corner.
Olestra? Edible...
I just mix some vinegar in near the end to loosen it up.
According to Prof Kripa Varanasi, who developed the slippery surface, the technology is completely safe.
Like margarine or pet plastics were perfectly safe in the sixties safe?
Ketchup that slides right out of the bottle, to the last drop?
Shut down the Patent Office. There is now nothing worthwhile left to invent.
This is so pointless. I just use my tongue to scoop up the last drops of delicious ketchup from the bottom of the bottle. Yes, women love me.
We can't cure cancer, but we can get that last glob of ketchup out of a bottle!
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
hmm, a super slipper coating for a concave plastic surface, to allow easier egress from the interior. i cant imagine any other practical uses for such a surface. I wonder if the Japanese might have a use for this, maybe as part of some recreational toy, like a doll??
Ketchup and toothpaste prices double after new coating used in containers. Manufacturer's claim an increase in "value" due to the customer getting more mileage from a bottle or tube. Sizes remain the same.
The problem has always been that no one realized that the inherent "stickiness" to the walls of the container make pouring whatever is inside controllable. When this "revolutionary new coating" first came out 6 articles ago, it never came to market because they found out that when you try to pour, everything came out at once. This could be controlled by using one of those squeezy lids that make funny fart noises, but, ultimately, the cost of adding both the new lid and the coating didn't add up to savings.
As many have pointed out this is old news. But every time I see it I think. Sure this will be in ketchup bottles its so cheap but when I opt for the coating on my eyeglasses the cost will suddenly be over a hundred dollars for a relatively small surface.