On Nanotechnology and Laundry
Nanotechnology is one of the most promising new scientific fields around today. It focuses on working with items on the atomic, molecular, or macro-atomic level (constructing, for instance, cogs and tubes consisting of only a few dozen atoms). As an emerging technology, however, there are also safety concerns. Nanotechnology uses items so small that the normal laws governing how these items should behave often don't apply - they can have strange magnetic properties, and pass into solid objects. The health concerns are expecially unknown - nanoparticles can pass through the skin, be inhaled and absorbed by the lungs, even pass through cell walls and break the blood/brain barrier. Due to the small size of nanoparticles, the toxicology associated with larger particles of substances is almost completely irrelevant.
So what's all that got to do with laundry, then? Well, we're thinking of buying a new washing machine, and one of the front runners is a Samsung one using their new Silvercare technology. Silver's been known to have antibacterial properties for ages. In the old west, people used to drop a silver coin into their water when carrying it long distances to keep it fresh. The washer takes this to a whole new level - a couple of silver bars are electrically nanoshaved to release silver ions into the wash. These nanoparticles coat the clothing being washed, wiping out 99.9% of bacteria present, and remaining on the clothing meaning that bacteria subsequently introduced is also significantly reduced (you can wear your socks for 3 days, if you want). It's a cheaper, more energy efficient, and far more effective method than a hot wash, and the effects last for up to a month. You can also use it on any item of clothing, regardless of care instructions, making the whole process a lot more useful than hot washes.
But, of course, it's nanotechnology. We're talking individual silver atoms here. This could be perfectly safe. It might be horribly dangerous. We just don't know. While the amount of silver used is incredibly low, there's still a risk there, because basically, no one's bothered to study the effect of nanoparticles on the human body. You don't know, I don't know, the corporation doesn't know, the government does know, how safe this process is (and this despite the fact that there are over 200 products on the market and rising that contain nanoparticles). As was recently said by a team of scientists, there needs to be a concerted effort to study the safety of nanotechnology, over a period of 10 or 15 years, so we can be confident that we're not causing major environmental and health problems for the future. Heck, I don't know, the risk is probably low, and it's a very nice washer (frankly, given it's about the same price as the other one we're considering, we could just buy it and not use the silvercare option). But I don't know if I'm willing to take the ultimately unknown risk with our health in buying one of these. And I wish that someone would start studying the risks involved in nanotech. If the corporations marketing the stuff aren't willing to start paying for it, government should step in and force a study.
So what's all that got to do with laundry, then? Well, we're thinking of buying a new washing machine, and one of the front runners is a Samsung one using their new Silvercare technology. Silver's been known to have antibacterial properties for ages. In the old west, people used to drop a silver coin into their water when carrying it long distances to keep it fresh. The washer takes this to a whole new level - a couple of silver bars are electrically nanoshaved to release silver ions into the wash. These nanoparticles coat the clothing being washed, wiping out 99.9% of bacteria present, and remaining on the clothing meaning that bacteria subsequently introduced is also significantly reduced (you can wear your socks for 3 days, if you want). It's a cheaper, more energy efficient, and far more effective method than a hot wash, and the effects last for up to a month. You can also use it on any item of clothing, regardless of care instructions, making the whole process a lot more useful than hot washes.
But, of course, it's nanotechnology. We're talking individual silver atoms here. This could be perfectly safe. It might be horribly dangerous. We just don't know. While the amount of silver used is incredibly low, there's still a risk there, because basically, no one's bothered to study the effect of nanoparticles on the human body. You don't know, I don't know, the corporation doesn't know, the government does know, how safe this process is (and this despite the fact that there are over 200 products on the market and rising that contain nanoparticles). As was recently said by a team of scientists, there needs to be a concerted effort to study the safety of nanotechnology, over a period of 10 or 15 years, so we can be confident that we're not causing major environmental and health problems for the future. Heck, I don't know, the risk is probably low, and it's a very nice washer (frankly, given it's about the same price as the other one we're considering, we could just buy it and not use the silvercare option). But I don't know if I'm willing to take the ultimately unknown risk with our health in buying one of these. And I wish that someone would start studying the risks involved in nanotech. If the corporations marketing the stuff aren't willing to start paying for it, government should step in and force a study.