3D-printed slippery toilet bowl

Scientists made a super toilet using lasers, plastic, and sand

A group of scientists at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, looked for a better toilet bowl as they thought back on thousands of years of toilet history. Now, Yike Li and his colleagues have invented a feature that is sure to please everyone: a super-slippery toilet bowl on which almost nothing can stick. The journal Advanced Engineering Materials has published their study.

According to this article, they mixed plastic with hydrophobic sand grains in a 3D printing technique and then injected silicon-based oil into the concoction. The end result was a slick bowl that flushed everything they put in it, including starch-filled gel, artificial excrement, dirty water, rice porridge, milk, and honey. Even after they sandpapered the surface more than 1,000 times, nothing stuck. Even when the researchers used a Stanley knife and file to scrape the dish, it remained slippery.

They refer to their invention as ARSSFT—Abrasion-Resistant Super-Slippery Flush Toilet.

Nonstick sprays have been used in the past to treat toilets, but they ultimately wear off. The silicon oil penetrates deeply into the surface of the ARSSFT model bowl, which is one-tenth the size of a standard toilet, ensuring non-stick properties while being sufficiently below the surface to prevent leaching out.

The research paper claims that the researchers’ motivation went beyond the straightforward desire for a cleaner toilet bowl.

Huazhong University’s Li explained, “Globally, toilet flushing alone consumes more than 141 billion liters of water per day, which is six times the African population’s entire water consumption”.

The ARSSFT approach can “address the issue of water waste on Earth”, Li said.