Scientists Invented a Super-Slippery Toilet That Nothing Sticks to

Good news! This could be useful! 😊 Might be a real water safer! That it requires perhaps a lubricant could be negative.

"... The traditional porcelain and ceramic toilet bowls could be on the way out, if a new 3D-printed design from scientists ... catches on – with the key benefit being the ultra slippery surface. ...
They used a mixture of plastic and hydrophobic sand grains for their material, fused together with laser-based 3D printing techniques, in a design that was around a tenth the size of a standard toilet bowl. ...

The flushing toilet has only been around properly for a couple of centuries, but we now use more than 141 billion liters of fresh water globally each day to flush toilets, which is nearly six times the daily water consumption of Africa. ...

The 3D printing approach enabled the scientists to introduce some porousness to the surface, and add a silicon oil as a lubricant. Both of these innovations helped in the non-stick qualities of the small bowl.

What's more, the lubricant can be replenished to keep the bowl ultra slippy over time. ..."

From the abstract:

"Flush toilets waste a significant amount of water every day due to the unavoidable adhesions between human waste and the toilet surfaces. Super-slippery surfaces can repel complex fluids and various viscoelastic solids, however, are easily broken by mechanical abrasions. Herein, the fabrication of an abrasion-resistant super-slippery flush toilet (ARSFT) is reported using a selective laser sintering 3D printing technology. Unlike traditional super-slippery surfaces with limited thicknesses which can be easily worn away, the powder-sintered strategy endows the ARSFT not only with a self-supporting 3D complex shape but also with a porous structure that can accommodate considerable lubricants for an abrasion-resistant super-slippery property. As a result, the as-prepared ARSFT remains clean after contacting with various liquids such as milk, yogurt, highly sticky honey, and starch gel mixed congee, demonstrating excellent repellence to complex fluids. Besides liquids, the ARSFT exhibits a high resistance to sticky synthetic feces. Notably, even after being abraded to 1,000 cycles of abrasion using sandpaper, the ARSFT maintains its record-breaking super-slippery capability. The concept of the 3D-printed object with a superior abrasion-resistant slippery ability will improve the development of super-slippery materials and further save water consumption in the human society."

Scientists Invented a Super-Slippery Toilet That Nothing Sticks to : ScienceAlert

Abrasion-Resistant and Enhanced Super-Slippery Flush Toilets Fabricated by a Selective Laser Sintering 3D Printing Technology (open access)

Figure 1 Schematic illustration of fabricating an abrasion-resistant super-slippery flush toilet (ARSFT) by the selective laser sintering 3D printing technology.