One cup of water, one load of laundry?
Researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK say they have found a way to
use as little as one cup of water to do a load of laundry.
Martin Gregson, a non-executive director of Xeros, the university spin-off
formed to commercialize the process, said that the small amount of water and
detergent used in the process act in a conventional washing manner. The trick
comes in the form of polymer pellets that are added to the load to draw the
soil and dirt out of the water.
Gregson, a former technical director for the Johnson Service Group in the UK,
said the process uses a commercially available polymer in a chip form, with the
chips measuring about 5 millimeters in diameter. About 44 pounds of the chips
are used in the process and they can be reused up to 100 times.
“So the water is effectively constantly being cleaned and re-purified to carry on
the washing process,” Gregson explained in an article published on the CleanTech website (www.cleantech.com).
“There are huge cost savings, particularly in terms of energy, but also in terms
of water, which is becoming a very expensive resource in many parts of the
world, and also the effluent discharge,” said Gregson.
“One of the real beauties of this process is its very simple approach. It’s not space-age technology,” said Gregson. “It’s an evaluation of what has been a long known phenomenon that certain polymers
do absorb solid matter, so it should be relatively simple to scale it up and
produce a machine.”
The university said the new technology could be on the UK market as early as
next year. Founded last year by Stephen Burkinshaw, a professor of textile
chemistry at Leeds, Xeros has raised just under £500,000 in funding from London’s IP Group.
The company sees the technology being applied to a number of other areas over
the long-term, including industrial processes such as wastewater treatment and
metal degreasing.
The company is also testing its technology for the drycleaning market, thinking
that it could be used to replace drycleaning solvents. Xeros said its
technology has been proven in controlled lab experiments and has been tested in
commercial scale drycleaning facilities.
Another target for Xeros is to use the process during the dyeing of textiles to
remove unwanted excess dyes.
Gregson said Xeros wants to develop links with commercial partners, which would
include machine manufacturers.
“We do have close links with one manufacturer who is building a prototype
machine, but I’m afraid couldn’t tell you who that is,” said Gregson. “But it is an industry known name.”
