Scientists at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, have developed an extremely slippery toilet that stays that way even when its surface is eroded. It has been reported portal New Scientist.
There are many types of slippery toilet surfaces, such as Teflon coating. But they are not strong enough: the more they are used, the less slippery they become. Therefore, the toilet gets dirty faster, in some cases users even have to change the toilet.
The authors printed a 3-D model of the toilet, which is about 10 times smaller than the full-size version. They used a mixture of plastic and hydrophobic sand grains as the material. Then they applied silicone oil to the surface, which was absorbed into the structure of the material.
The scientists also tested the coating with various contaminants — water, milk, yogurt, honey and synthetic feces. None of them stuck to the surface of the toilet bowl. The toilet was equally slippery even after cleaning it over 1000 times with sandpaper.
According to them, the improvement will help to significantly reduce the amount of water used for siphoning.
Previously in Saint Petersburg Completed metal 3D printer Sokol-1.