Cost-effective Laundry Through Nanodiamonds

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK, COVENTRY, UNITED KINGDOM. Nanodiamonds are added to laundry detergent to improve its cold washing capability. Doing your laundry in cooler temperatures usually leave fats and dirt on the clothes. The incorporation of nanodiamonds in detergents can optimize the efficiency in washing clothes especially in cold temperature. Also, it is more effective in loosening dirt from the clothes’ surfaces.

Almost everyone does his or her laundry. A lot can definitely attest to the effectivity of washing clothes in warm or hot water. Ordinarily, laundry detergents do not function well in cooler temperature. What is usually done is that the water needs to be heated. The average wash temperature is around 104°F (40°C), thus consuming around 5-10 kWh per load.

If the amount of water used in doing one’s laundry and the temperature of the water is cut in half, then that would mean almost trillion kilowatt-hours of energy savings every year. This is around 0.5% of the world’s energy consumption. This led to the research and development of better laundry detergents.

Professor Andrew Marsh and his team looked for a solution when laundry detergents do not work well in cold water. Also, they wanted to find an effective answer in getting rid of fat, grease and other lipid molecules. Their research led to the incorporation of nanodiamonds to conventional detergents to improve its washing abilities.

The use of nanodiamonds as small as 5-nanometers can double the amount fat and dirt removed at room temperature or 77°F. The use of nanodiamonds will only add $1 to an average load of laundry. This additional cost outweigh the cost of energy consumption done in conventional laundry that utilizes warm or hot water. This would also mean less time spent in making the clothes sparkly clean.