Scientists Invent Ultrasonic Dryer That Uses Sound To Dry Your Clothes (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have developed a dryer that could make doing laundry much quicker. Called the ultrasonic dryer, it's expected to be up to five times more energy efficient than most conventional dryers and able dry a large load of clothes in about half the time. Instead of using heat the way most dryers do, the ultrasonic dryer relies on high-frequency vibrations. Devices called green transducers convert electricity into vibrations, shaking the water from clothes. The scientists say that this method will allow a medium load of laundry to dry in 20 minutes, which is significantly less time than the average 50 minutes it takes in many heat-based machines. The drying technology also leaves less lint behind than normal dryers do, since the majority of lint is created when the hot air stream blows tiny fibers off of clothing. Drying clothes without heat also reduces the chance that their colors will fade. While the ultrasonic dryer has been in development for the past couple of years, the U.S. Department of Energy explains in a published video that it has recently been "developed into a full-scale press dryer and clothes dryer drum -- setting the stage for it to one day go to market through partners like General Electric Appliances."

Comments

American problem is American

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get this. I actually just put a load in the washer, and in three hours it'll be done (says the thing). Then I'll hang it all out to dry.

Now I understand that stateside having clothes hang outside is a sure sign of poverty. While I'm certainly not rich, there is no such stigma here. And anyway, clothing hangs pretty well on an indoors rack too. It just takes a night or so, which is fine by me. I even turn down the spin cycle speed to go easy on the clothes, something dryers very much don't do.

So while this ultranoisy thing is probably wonderful progress and everything, I don't really understand the problem in the first place. Maybe I'm just not first world enough.

Re:American problem is American

[Parker Lewis]

This comment is so self-centered. You're assuming everyone is a single person, home user, with enough space to hang clothes outside, good weather every day and no need of clothes in few hours. Can you realize that in some areas, like big cities, people lives in so tiny buildings with no space for hanging (and some buildings have rules banning this)? That several countries, weather is not friendly for this at all? That when you have a family with several members (mainly if you have more than one baby), time is really important for clothes drying? And, if you're a laundry, time and efficiency are fuc*ing important!

Re:American problem is American

[RobinH]

If you make $50,000 a year at a 2000 hour per year job, you make $25 per hour, and let's say after tax that's... maybe $18 an hour. That's somewhat typical. I'll be generous and say it only takes you an extra 10 minutes to hang a load and go get it off the line later. That's a sixth of an hour, which should be worth $3 to you in after-tax income. I happen to have an energy monitor installed at my panel, and I can tell you that it takes less than 25 cents of electricity to dry a load. Obviously this varies by where you live, but it's certainly going to be less than $1. Much less than that if you use a gas dryer. We do at least 4 loads a week, typically 5 as we're a family of 5, so that's a savings of around $10 per week, so over $500 per year in time savings. My electric dryer is over 15 years old and it's a very basic two-cycle with moisture sensor type, so probably cost less than $500 new. I think it's a no-brainer to use a clothes dryer.

Re:American problem is American

[Solandri]

I've done it all three ways - hanging outdoors, hanging indoors, and a dryer. The dryer by far produces the best results. Most clothes come out not needing ironing. And in Winter, the energy used by the dryer to produce heat also heats your home so its energy use is not entirely wasteful. (In Summer you just close the laundry room door so the extra heat doesn't add to your air conditioning bill).

Hanging outdoors is second best, but results in crinkled clothes which need ironing (eliminating a good chunk of the energy savings of not using a dryer since you dry everything at once, but iron one at a time). If you've got a family of 4, it takes a lot of space. That forces you to wash/dry in multiple small loads instead of a few big ones, which wastes more energy and requires more labor. And of course weather and particulate matter (pollen, smog) can dirty your "clean" clothes before you've even worn them.

Hanging indoors is worst. All the problems of hanging outdoors, but less space so more loads, more crinkling since you typically don't use clothespins to stretch the clothes out, longer drying time, and picks up household odors. It also increases the humidity of the air indoors, which cools the air so increases your heating bill in the Winter. In Summer, if you're in a low-humidity environment (desert) this cooling can be helpful; but in high-humidity climates it just increases your air conditioning bill because humid air feels hotter (sweating is less effective) forcing you to run the air conditioner more.

But overall, I'd say the biggest factor is reduction of labor. Instead of taking 15-30 minutes clipping everything to the line or rack, you just shove all the clothes into the dryer in 1 minute, turn it on, and go do something else. (Unloading time is about the same for both since you have to fold the clothes.)

Re:American problem is American

[plague911]

European's also have a much lower GDP per person. Anecdotally because they spend much more time doing the work an American does in a fraction of the time.

Re:Don't buy this

[GrumpySteen]

here are no tangible benefits to using a crazy ultrasound dryer.

"up to five times more energy efficient than most conventional dryers"

It's the second sentence in the summary for god's sake. You didn't even have to click the link or read the article to get to it.

Re:Don't buy this

[thegarbz]

This is very much like the asbestos hysteria. OMG my child is at a school which has an asbestos wall, they'll all die in 40 years!!!!! No. The fibres are inside a sealed bonded sheet. Don't disturb it, don't attempt to remove it, keep it well maintained (reads: painted) and you'll be fine.

Re:Don't buy this

[orgelspieler]

"up to five times more energy efficient than most conventional dryers"

WTF does that mean? Does it mean that it uses 20% of the power a traditional dryer uses? Because it can't literally mean the efficiency is 5 times higher. A dryer is pretty damn efficient at turning electrical energy into thermal energy. Even if a dryer were only 40% efficient, the most this could hope for is 2.5 times the efficiency. I hate it when people use "times more;" it is almost never a helpful way to describe the mathematical construct they are trying to explain.