Super-absorbent towel soaks up liquids better than cloth or paper

A hydrogel mesh made from vinegar, baking soda, glycerol and intoxicant sucks up h2o 3 times arsenic good arsenic products made from insubstantial oregon cloth

Technology 21 December 2022

By Alex Wilkins

The gel expanse connected the near absorbs much h2o than a commercialized cloth

Matter/Choudhary et al.

A bladed towel that expands into a jelly-like blob tin sorb liquids 3 times arsenic good arsenic insubstantial oregon cloth-based products.

Hydrogels – meshes of agelong molecules linked unneurotic successful a web – tin sorb and clasp ample quantities of water, but erstwhile they adust out, they go brittle and truthful aren’t suitable arsenic insubstantial towels.

Now, Srinivasa Raghavan astatine the University of Maryland and his colleagues person developed a method to nutrient a dry, absorbent hydrogel that stays intact adjacent portion rolled up.

To marque the hydrogel sheets, the researchers combined vinegar and baking soda to nutrient a foam and placed it into a zip-lock bag. They past sandwiched this betwixt solid plates and exposed it to ultraviolet light, earlier mounting the expanse successful glycerol and alcohol.

“What we did could person been done 30 oregon 40 years ago,” says Raghavan. “All the ingredients and exertion were available.”

They past tested however good the expanse absorbed h2o compared with communal room towels and cloths, uncovering that it could sorb much than 3 times arsenic overmuch and didn’t drip oregon permission liquid behind.

The gel expanse can’t beryllium reused, truthful would neglect to vie with room cloths connected that front, but Raghavan sees it arsenic a much readily disposable alternate to room rotation oregon single-use aesculapian gauze. When the researchers compared it with gauze for absorbing blood, they recovered that the gel expanse could instrumentality up astir 40 millilitres, portion the gauze could lone sorb astir fractional that amount.

While the accumulation process is elemental and could easy beryllium scaled up, much enactment could beryllium done to marque the sheets much absorbent, says Raghavan.

The plan of the expanse is archetypal and it has awesome absorbent properties, says Alberto Saiani astatine the University of Manchester, UK. To vie with insubstantial towels, though, it volition request to beryllium developed further to marque it cost-effective and recyclable, helium says.

Journal reference: Matter, DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2022.11.021

More connected these topics:

• materials science