Marvel of the Day: The Nanotech Toilet
From the appropriately named Extreme Nano:
…..another relatively new and little publicized toilet innovation is emerging as a winner here. Yes, it’s the nanotech toilet. It turns out that nanotechnology can address one of those “should do” but highly unpleasant tasks in life – cleaning the toilet. For some of us, that’s right up there with pulling weeds, flossing teeth and taking out the garbage. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a self-cleaning toilet?
Nano meets the toilet
Over the past four years Toto (the Japan-based world’s largest single-brand toilet manufacturer) has, in fact, been rolling out a self-cleaning feature across some of its toilet line. Called CeFiONtect (Ceramic Fine Ion Technology) in Asia and SaniGloss in the U.S., Toto’s ceramic glaze coats the inner bowl with a non-porous, super smooth surface at the nanometer scale. According to the company, stubborn waste is as small as a few microns. Their patents suggest that the “roughness” of a SaniGloss surface may be under 30 nanometers. By eliminating the microscopic nooks and crannies that conventional glazes have, there are no places for dirt, mold or bacteria to get a foothold. Toto achieves this smoothness by applying a secondary transparent glaze over the conventional colored glaze whose pigments and opacifiers create surface unevenness. In addition, anti-bacterial metals can be added to this layer.
Conventional glazes contain ions that can repel particles. But those ions are not uniformly spread across the surface – leaving about 50% of the surface susceptible to waste and bacteria adhesion. Toto’s technology, on the other hand, creates a high density, uniform charged ion barrier across the entire surface of the bowl, creating good resistance to deposits. Should any matter actually deposit on the surface, the smoothness should enable a stream of water to flush it down the drain. No rubbing, no detergents. According to a Lenora Campos, PR Manager for Toto USA, “SaniGloss makes surfaces on which it is glazed virtually self-cleaning.”
Is this truly a self cleaning toilet?
Not totally. Campos cautions that, “These surfaces do require period maintenance as anything does, but that maintenance is periodic. For example, when a toilet bowl is glazed with SanaGloss, the water that rinses the bowl as the toilet flushes is all that’s needed to remove stains, residue, scaling, and lime buildup.” Adds Terry Love, a Bellevue, WA plumber who hosts a popular plumbing and remodeling web site, “Homeowners report that they still need to clean their toilet, but SanaGloss cuts the cleaning effort in half.” That alone makes consumers overjoyed with the performance.
If this ever catches on, the arguments over who does the housework will be much less contentious.
