Self-Cleaning Underwear Goes Weeks Without Washing

[Wayne Harrison]

If they could just make caving suits out of this...

Self-cleaning fabrics could revolutionize the sport apparel industry. The technology, created by scientists working for the U.S. Air Force, has already been used to create t-shirts and underwear that can be worn hygenically for weeks without washing.

The new technology attaches nanoparticles to clothing fibers using microwaves. Then, chemicals that can repel water, oil and bacteria are directly bound to the nanoparticles. These two elements combine to create a protective coating on the fibers of the material.

This coating both kills bacteria, and forces liquids to bead and run off.

The U.S. military spent more than $20 million to develop the fabric, deriving from research originally intended to protect soldiers from biological weapons.



http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffic ... abric.html

[Carl Amundson]

Heck, I would like some long underwear made out of that material. My duofold gets pretty nasty after a while.

[tagkaver]

that would be nice because it seems like you can never really get polypro tops clean nor does it seem that that smell never goes away

[Scott McCrea]

Clean? Maybe. Comfy? Doubtful.

And this is really nothing new. In college we had 8 day underwear:
Day 1: wear normally
2: wear backwards
3: inside-out
4: inside-out and backwards
5-8: spray with deodorant and repeat 1-4.

[graveleye]

Clean? Maybe. Comfy? Doubtful.

And this is really nothing new. In college we had 8 day underwear:
Day 1: wear normally
2: wear backwards
3: inside-out
4: inside-out and backwards
5-8: spray with deodorant and repeat 1-4.

Scott we know that for you, some things never change!

[Squirrel Girl]

Clean? Maybe. Comfy? Doubtful.

Who knows? So far, that may be true. But new fabrics are a lot better than some of the old ones. I am optimistic. These things might be VERY expensive, but I'd LOVE to have a couple of sets for travel. I'd pay a lot for them.

I do wonder, at the risk of being disgusting.... where do the icky particles that don't stick go? I mean, 'spose someone has skid marks on their undies. If they aren't stuck to their undies, they have to be repelled, and drop off somewhere. Uck!

[Dane]

Ugh, SG!
Flag on that play!!!!

[Scott McCrea]

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