Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles to be Placed in Clothes to ‘Eat’ Pollution

Effortlessly clean up your town’s polluted air with your favorite pair of jeans – that is what is trying to be done. If this sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. “CatClo,” a liquid laundry additive with titanium dioxide nanoparticles, is the collaborative work of the University of Sheffield and the London College of Fashion.

All your clothes would need is one cycle with this additive—because the nano particles very stubbornly stick to the fabrics—to remove pollutants like nitrogen oxide in the air and oxidise them in the fabric.

www.activistpost.com...

Not sure if I agree with this or not. Kind of a nice idea to be cleaning up pollution. But shouldn't pollution be cleaned at source. Not sure how much I trust having nano particles in my clothes. It would not surprise me if they find they cause us biological damage years later..

reply to post by purplemer


You read the article and you are wondering if this is good or not?

I have nothing else..

NO!

hmm i wonder if this has any similarities as the "pollution eating paint" used in the Philippines? BOYSEN(r) KNOxOUT (trademarked), as well as Healthy Home (trademarked) "antibacterial paint". www.boysen.com.ph...

i know they have been using the KNOxOUT for at least a couple years and seems to be effective.

imagine Al Gore preaching 'insert these nanaparticles into your bloodstream and lungs to help make this world cleaner'.

everyone then literally turns into an mobile air purifier !!!

reply to post by purplemer


WTF
why dont the polluters set aside a portion of their earnings and purchase these nanoparticles, and soak air filters in them and clean up their own crap?

of course not, they instead try to trick people into being airfilters and ruin their clothes by using them as toilet paper AND pay the expense as well, to the profit of the polluters, same old, same old. [you know that stuff all the little neo-hippies and enviromentalists use to clean seagulls and other animals up after an oil spill? produced by the oil companies and sold through greenintermediaries]

a better solution would be if the polluters and the greed-heads just dropped dead one morning IMO

Originally posted by Rapha
imagine Al Gore preaching 'insert these nanaparticles into your bloodstream and lungs to help make this world cleaner'.

everyone then literally turns into an mobile air purifier !!!

edit on 30-9-2012 by Rapha because: (no reason given)

of course gore and his friends, especially the well heeled ones, and those who are causing the problem cannot be expected to do their part. as usual they exempt themselves because preaching is equal to acting, so they've done their bit

We are the pollutants of the Earth. Methinks the nano particles will consume us.

Wearing around your own supply of titanium dioxide nanoparticles is really not the best idea. Generally speaking, all use of it in products that come in contact with humans or introduce it into the environment should be reduced and eventually stopped.

This research paper is titled "Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles Induce DNA Damage and Genetic Instability In vivo in Mice".
jsanderslaw.com...

"in vivo" simply means in the body rather than in a test tube.

reply to post by purplemer


Interesting indeed! My little sister is currently in the middle of a study that's attempting to identify the cause of large quantities of dead Flounder and Stingrays at the outlet end of a cooling water canal connected to an old gas fired power plant that is no longer in use.

The current prime suspect in the case is not the power generating plant per say, but rather a fire that took place after the plant closed in which some towers containing multiple elements made out of titanium, supposedly burned uncontrollably for a long period of time and their ash washed downstream into the bays and estuaries.

Just last week, she told me that titanium dioxide was highly suspect as the cause.

F&S for the OP.

reply to post by Flatfish


Thank you for the info. It does look like Titanium Dioxide does affect aquatic life...

The use of nanoparticles—particles with size 1–100 nm is increasing worldwide. This is particularly the case for applications of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nano-TiO2) in consumer products, which have expanded at a fast rate in the last decade. The properties of nano-TiO2 differ significantly from bulk-TiO2 of the same composition because of an increase in surface area. A release of nano-TiO2 from application sources to the aquatic environment may pose possible risks due to their bioavailability and toxicity

www.tandfonline.com...

why don't we just bathe in the stuff? oh wait...

"Spraying nano-sized titaniumdioxide into the atmosphere to combat climate change"

www.bitsofscience.org...

May 16, 2012

Dispersing fine (sub-micron) light-scattering particles into the upper atmosphere could help to combat climate change, suggests a former UK government advisor and chemical engineer.

The technology concept developed in the UK and first revealed in this month’s tce magazine ("Up and away“; pdf), advocates dispersing benign titanium dioxide particles as used in paint, inks and sunscreens into the stratosphere to deflect the sun’s rays. In a tce webinar on 15 May, Peter Davidson, a Chartered Chemical Engineer, Fellow of IChemE and the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a former senior innovation advisor to a number of government departments, will call for this geoengineering concept to be researched as an insurance policy to cope with possible catastrophic effects of global warming if we don’t manage to reduce CO2 emissions fast enough.

“While it’s essential that we work to reduce carbon dioxide emissions now, it would be wise to have a well-researched emergency system in reserve as a Plan B,” says Davidson.

The idea may sound like science fiction; but the concept in fact mimics the earth-cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions which occur several times a century. When in 1991 Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, it caused temperatures to drop by around 0.5°C around the globe for two years, ending most talk of global warming during this period. The eruption threw 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, forming a fine mist of sulphuric acid particles that spread over the globe in a matter of months.

As the size of volcanic aerosol particles is similar to the wavelength of sunlight, they scattered a small proportion of the light (~1 %), and hence its heat back into space. The Earth cooled.

Adding sulphuric acid to the stratosphere degrades the ozone layer, and may cause regional changes in precipitation. We need a benign but similarly sized particle; Davidson suggests Titanium Dioxide (TiO2), mankind’s most commonly-used pigment. It is stable in air, non-toxic and seven-times more effective at scattering light than sulphuric acid. Titanium is abundant in the earth’s crust and five million tonnes a year of pigment is produced currently so supply appears feasible. If you are reading this on a printed page the ink and the paper probably both have a TiO2 pigment in them.

With a candidate particle identified, the next challenge is devising a system to effectively and economically lift and disperse millions of tons of particles some 20 km (~ 65,000 feet) up into the stratosphere, so they stay up for a couple of years and do not immediately get rained out.

Davidson says: “The impact of global warming is predicted to be most severe on the world’s poorest peoples, both because of their lack of resources and because of where they happen to be living. I would hope we could ensure that these peoples have a stake in decision-making and the opportunity to have their voice heard, alongside the richer countries, and appropriate NGO’s (for example environmentalists), as well as other bodies.

“Ideally an independent charitable trust funded by a variety of stakeholders from around the world would research not only the technology but suitable governance, legal and ethical frameworks,” adds Davidson.

The total capital cost of the balloon, tethers, ultra high pressure pumps, and the production and transport of the particles is estimated to be £500m plus £600m in annual operating costs in a paper to be published by the Royal Society. These costs are perhaps thirty times lower than the next best technologies considered, such as large numbers of very sophisticated jet aircraft, and do not have the same carbon footprint. “Space mirrors on the scale needed and 20km tall towers are likely to be for the 22nd century not this one.”

Very approximate estimates are that we’d need to disperse over a million tonnes of titanium dioxide per year to keep planetary temperatures constant if CO2 levels in the atmosphere double. If such an insurance policy was needed we would have to do this for 50 to 150 years. Ocean acidification would be a worry but this might be still worse if such temperature control did not keep methane emissions from melting arctic tundra or seas under control.

At current prices, supplying these particles would cost around £3bn per year or around 50p per person per year.

Davidson says: “Creating a suitable insurance policy for climate remediation is a vital task. It will not do to underestimate the challenges. Much research and work on governance is still needed, but a vision is now on offer for debate, and development where potential means of solving some of the most difficult technical challenges have been identified. It would be short-sighted to put-off research of such a safety-device – like trying to develop a life-jacket when you’re swept out to sea and struggling in the water.”

In London they already use paving stones that mitigate pollution. This is a short term solution, just gives us borrowed time.. The problem needs to be dealt with at source.
Titanium dioxide is a hazardous material, as the OP stated - it is hazardous to life. I don't think I'd like such chemicals on my clothing...

Has anyone else thought this idea is stupid? It sounds like wearing a catalytic converter around your crotch and other, shall we say, "delicate" areas. Does anyone know how hot a catalytic converter gets? Damn Hot!! And not all of that heat is from the waste heat from the exhaust stream. Alot of it is generated by the oxidation of the chemicals in the exhaust by the metals in the converter.

I dont know about you all, but I'm not gonna wash my jocky-shorts, jeans, or anything else in a solution that will cause a little "crotch-pot cooking" (thanks Robin Willams) every time a car goes by, or I break wind.

OUCH!!!!!!!