FOR KIDS: Wanted: ?Smart? cleaners

Active surfaces will ? on their own ? help remove everything from insects and germs to poisons

Active surfaces will ? on their own ? help remove everything from insects and germs to poisons

By Roberta Kwok

Web edition: June 20, 2013

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Unsticking the splat!

This car picked up plenty of bug splatter on an 8-hour trip from New York to Maine, last year. But a new paint is being developed that makes it hard for such insect carcasses to stick.

Credit: Oliver Rich

Cleaning is a lot of work. When you spill spaghetti sauce on a table, you have to wipe it up. When your clothes get dirty, you have to launder them. And when birds poop on your car, you have to scrub off the droppings.

But what if these everyday things could clean or sanitize themselves? Imagine surfaces, paints and fabrics with special cleansers built right into them. A material with such additives could disinfect itself or remove its own stains.

Some scientists are already creating such products.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351143/title/FOR_KIDS_Wanted_Smart_cleaners

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