Scientists develop self-cleaning surfaces that don’t need dusting

By James Gamble via SWNS

The age-old chore of dusting could soon be blown away as scientists have developed "self-cleaning" surfaces.

Researchers developed a way of altering surfaces which makes dust particles unable to stick to them.

The particles instead stick to each other and simply roll off the surfaces with nothing more than the assistance of gravity.

The study primarily focused on space technology, and how dust can play havoc and even ruin missions to Mars and equipment on space stations.

But the researchers also believe the discovery could prove useful on Earth, in preventing solar panels from collecting dust and losing efficiency, and even one day being used to protect our screens and windows from irritating dust.

Scientists from The University of Texas at Austin altered the geometry of flat surfaces at a level invisible to the human eye.

The team made a tightly-packed nanoscale network of pyramid-shaped structures on the surfaces which makes it difficult for dust particles to stick to the material.

Instead, the particles stick to each other before rolling off the material with gravity.

The study, funded by a grant from space agency NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, tested the material by piling lunar dust on their engineered surfaces before turning them on their sides.

The team found that just two percent of the surface remained dusty, compared with more than 35 percent of an unaltered smooth surface.

The new surfaces could provide a passive solution to removing dust; as opposed to more active methods like using wipers and fluid to clear dust from a car windscreen.

Dr. Chih-Hao Chang, one of the lead authors of the study, says the experiments show that self-cleaning surfaces are possible.

Chang, an associate professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said: "What we've demonstrated here is a surface that can clean itself.

"Particulates aren’t able to stick to the surface, so they come off using just the force of gravity."

It is hoped the material could provide solutions to space dust - which can be extremely harmful in such a high-risk environment and is almost impossible to clean.

Space dust has previously wreaked havoc on NASA's human spaceflight Apollo missions, and has even caused rovers on Mars to malfunction and fail.

Samuel Lee, a lead author and undergraduate researcher in Dr Chang’s group, added: "There's not much you can do about lunar dust in space – it sticks to everything and there's no real way to wipe it or spray it off.

"Dust on solar panels of Mars rovers can cause them to fail."

Although anti-dust technology has been around for decades, studies have rarely gained much traction outside of the lab due to problems with scaling.

Chang's team's study, published in the ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces journal, used nanotechnology fabrication concepts called 'nanocoining' and 'nanoimprinting,' which prints patterns on objects in a modernized version of how newspapers and photographs were mass-produced in the 19th century.