A chemical clothes drier
“Better living through science,” as they say. In this case, through chemistry. Researchers at the University of Florida have come up with a novel way to decrease drying times for loads of laundry. The compound is called dioctyldecyldimethyl ammonium bromide (’”We call it dodab,” Carter said’ — one can hardly blame them), and it works by decreasing surface tension in the water.
Those of you familiar with surface active agents (surfactants), like soap, will already know that adding such agents to water decreases the surface tension. For example, if you filled up a cup of water to the point where the water is higher than the edge of the cup, and then added the tiniest bit of soap, this water over the brim would spill down the sides of the cup because the surface tension was decreased. Laundry detergent does the same thing, but this “dodab” compound decreases the surface tension even more. The ramifications could be huge.
Clothes dryers accounted for 5.8 percent of U.S. residential electricity in 2001, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration, costing $5.6 billion. “If you could cut that down by 10 percent, that would have a important impact on the big picture,” said Jonathan Cogan, an EIA spokesman.
Carter says they can do even better: “I believe that with further research, we could cut drying times by between 30 and 40 percent.”
30 to 40% is pretty impressive is pretty impressive in terms of money, and time. If drying time could be cut down by that much, my clothes might actually be dry by the time the wash cycle is finished, and if that happened, I might actually fold said laundry the same week that it got washed. If you’re anything like me, you start doing laundry with the best intentions and then never finish it because you got sidetracked by something else, or sitting and staring at the wall just seemed like a better idea… now if only they could make something that would fold my clothes and put them away for me, I’d be all set.
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