Self-cleaning jeans, purified water at 10 paise/litre

New tech wonders

Wouldn’t it be great if you never had to wash your jeans? You wear it for days together and don’t worry about washing it before the next use. Well, such jeans do exist. You must be wondering how that’s possible? Read on to know more.

Scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, Hyderabad, have developed what they call ‘self-cleaning jeans’. These trousers automatically get cleaned up under sunlight. Titanium dioxide microspheres do the magic.

The centre displayed the jeans at its stall at the 8th Edition of Bangalore India Nano which began on Thursday. When trousers coated with titanium dioxide are exposed to sunlight, ultraviolet radiation kills the bacteria and virus, besides cleaning the dust, Dr Srinivasan Anandan, a scientist at the Centre for Nano Materials, told Deccan Herald. These jeans are available in the market, priced between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,500.

Also on display at the event was a water purifier designed by the faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Prof C N R Rao commended AMRIT (Arsenic and Metal Removal by Indian Technology) purifiers which can generate between 100 and 9,000 litres of water per day. AMRIT uses patented nanotechnology to purify water.

T Pradeep, a professor of chemistry at IIT, Madras, said the device can be used for domestic as well as commercial purpose. “It has been installed in several parts of Punjab. As many as 330 schools in West Bengal have also the installed the purifier. There are also a few in Raichur,” he said.

Making pure water available for consumption is their focus, said the IIT faculty. With a capacity to generate 80-100 litres of water, portable water can be vended at just 10 paises per litre.

The purifier has two cartridges. The one on top does basic purification with clay and sand while the one at the bottom has the patented nano particles which remove arsenic and fluoride and kill the bacteria.