Scientists have created a model of a new, ultra-slick toilet. They state that a 3D-printed ultra-smooth toilet will not get dirty and requires less water to flush compared to conventional toilets. Could cleaning the bathroom become a trivial task?
In their research, the scientists reported that the super-smooth, abrasion-resistant toilet, created with 3D printing, is entirely capable of resisting dirt with various liquids, including milk, sludge, and even synthetic feces. Unlike other smooth toilets, this one maintains its slickness even after multiple uses.
The new toilet material is ultra-smooth and has excellent non-stick properties. (Source video: Supplementary material from Li et al. 2023).
The research team drew inspiration from the tropical pitcher plant (Nepenthes), a carnivorous plant that secretes a slippery substance to lure prey. Similarly, the researchers coated the toilet’s surface with a lubricant that helps push waste down and out of the toilet.
On a chemical level, this slickness arises from a property of the material known as “hydrophobicity,” which measures how well a material repels water. Human waste is highly moist, so a hydrophobic surface helps prevent sticking.
Using a technique called selective 3D printing, the research team combined plastic particles with a type of hydrophobic sand to create the hard shell of the toilet. Importantly, this resulted in a porous structure with many small voids between the solid particles. The researchers filled these voids using a standard lubricant spread throughout the structure to coat the entire toilet.
Since the lubricant is stored throughout the toilet, the porous structure quickly replenishes any lost lubricant on the surface from deep within the material, allowing the toilet to maintain its ultra-smooth properties. Even strong mechanical abrasion—such as that caused by overly vigorous scrubbing with a toilet brush—does not diminish the slickness, as the material rapidly self-repairs by moving lubricant to the newly exposed surface. The team tested this by scrubbing the toilet 1,000 times with sandpaper.
Although the new glossy toilet promises to prevent sticking, it will still take some time before you see it appear in your local hardware store. This is because the researchers have only printed a small toilet model that is one-fifth the height of a standard porcelain toilet, and they have tested its slickness by exposing its surface to yogurt, honey, and starch gel…
