If you’re like most people, then washing clothes is probably a huge pain for you. Figuring out the odd number of minutes necessary to run a wash and dry cycle, trying desperately not to end up with clothes that are still wet, and worst of all having to wait so long for your clothes to be clean can be a real hassle.
One team of inventors decided to build Eleven, a dryer that dries and sanitizes clothes in a minute or less. As explained in their demo video, clothes are placed around the center tube and dried by the airflow initiated by Eleven. Fragrance and ozone is injected to prevent bacteria from causing bad smells.
The team experimented with ultrasonics and microwave-vacuum system, and ultimately decided to use a method that controls the flow of air within the fabric. A steam generator sprays the clothes with a disinfectant while a filter quarantines the chemicals to a receptacle within the device.
They also installed sensors to monitor the performance of the machine remotely, allowing users to track their clothes and the health of the machine even when they aren’t home. Something we’ve previously seen done in the DIY space.
It might not be the futuristic heat-free clothes dryer we were promised, but Eleven certainly looks like a step in the right direction.
Should say “Dry your sweat-dampened clothes…”.
I was prepared to be impressed with a one minute post-water-wash drying cycle. This is not that.
Bake in sweats stain is going to be fun to remove.
My frontloader wrings out clothes to a level that is pretty much “sweat-dampened” so that might actually work for me
Ah, the sweet smell of disinfectant fills the air! Could it be Sweet William yonder treads as maidens flee?
I hope there is a HEPA filter as most of the dust I have is fibers from laundry.
Now correct me if I am wrong but Ozone and Water vapor create Nitric Acid.
So one has to wonder what the effects will be on the material being exposed to Nitric Acid and more so what when you are wearing them.
Ozone is O3, so you won’t get anything with a nitrogen in it. :P
You are thinking of the various oxidizing states of nitrogen oxides say coming from a combustion engine?
I believe that it is the way that the ozone is created that can create nitric acid.
With corona discharge, if there is N2 and water vapor in the supply gas (think ambient atmosphere unless fed from a tank) nitric acid will be created to some extent.
That makes sense, I was under the impression that when O3 was passed through water vapor being an unstable gas it bonded with a nitrogen molecule creating nicric acid however i could be totally wrong on this.
I do know that it also tends to break down some rubber polymers prety quickly as well.
Unless the water vapor is in air, there won’t be any nitrogen atoms around. N2 in the air could maybe react with ozone, but N2 is usually unreactive. Sweat can have nitrogen containing molecules though.
you need UV/VIS light for the nitrogen to bother doing anything…
Also, HNO3 is far less problematic (at least in the low concentrations we’re talking about here) for us then nitrogen oxides and the ozone itself
That name Eleven make you think about what happened to the previous ten that didn’t make it. :P
My first thought was “This one goes to eleven…”
:-)
eleven https://youtu.be/MNuFcIRlwdc
2 polo shirts and 1 pair of sox, wrinkles included. Ozone will degrade underwear and other elastics. Time for a full load longer and more involved than a regular dryer or linear evaporator (clothesline).
Exactly what I was thinking, might dry what you are wearing, but not going to do bulk. Have to sort of wonder how energy efficient this might be. A regular dryer, will use more energy, for such a few items. But, how would it compare, if you ran a full load in a regular dryer, and however many cycles through the Eleven?
I’d also tend wonder what sort of person would skip the wash cycle, and be happy just drying the dirt on. I’ll admit, I don’t sit on my ass all day, and most of my day is spent in a clean, sterile environment. Maybe this is something for a homeless shelter, in a drought stricken area. Or maybe this is the sort of thing we get to look forward to in the climate change future, where we are reduced to the bare minimal, Fewer changes of clothes, and machine washing/drying is to expensive.
It looks like the intended audience is gyms where you set one of these units up in each of the lockers. People can then dry their clothes, put them back in their duffel bag, and presumably come back the next time with clothes ready to go.
That’s cool. Have clothes cleaned with this method been compared to those cleaned with traditional washer/dryer? Also, if I’ve understood it correctly, the ozone is supposed to kill(?) bacteria, but it wouldn’t remove stain, would it? If this truly works, this could be a big hit in gyms and offices.
Ozone is also a wonderful bleaching compound. I wonder how long before fabrics break down and colors fade.
Ozone is worse on some things than others. For polymers, rubbers are degraded much quicker than others. I’d imagine that anything with elastane (i.e. anything stretchy) would go first.
More embarrassing YouTube videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXR6y2ST77s&t=1572s
Cliff notes: Dry your cloths in a minute… actual washing not included.
I suppose there are occasions where this would be all that’s needed, but I generally want all the dirt and bodily excretions removed from clothing, not just sterilized.
Yep, I also wouldn’t like the idea of putting my clothes in/on some machine that is encrusted with other people’s sweat (and worse), no matter how much ozone and perfume has been thrown at it. Presumably the next logical step is to not even take a shower, just dry off in a stream of ozone-rich air?
If it only takes one minute to dry the clothes, what is the point of the remote sensors?
Surely you would stay until the cycle finishes?
It’s not as if you can empty and refill it remotely, is it?
Some of us have busy lives. We’ll be half way across town before that minute is up and will need to check regularly how long until said minute has passed. (It’s all that checking that keeps us so busy, doing nothing.)
Fastest man on Earth won’t need a drier. Just vibrate away the water molecules in a flash.
Fragrance that disinfects??? Sounds like it’s doing double time as an antibiotic… Fragrance is gross anyway, free & clear over here.
+1 – maybe fragrance is trying to mask ozone smell.
fine….make something that keeps tide pods out of the hands of children….
You mean something which prevents people from buying these quite useless pods at the beginning? I have no problem with a bottle of liquid detergent or a box of powder.
“The team experimented with ultrasonics and microwave-vacuum system, and ultimately decided to use a method that controls the flow of air within the fabric.”
So no ultrasonic tubs? Cavitation damage?
How about using vacuum to shorten drying time?
Few (pump maybe) moving parts should increase reliability and make the entire process quieter.
We already have a huge sustainability problem as we are. We don’t need more chemicals in our clothes (and as others said: ozone, which degrades our clothes) — we need less. Much less. And less energy.
That’s where the hacks are needed right now.
We also (in ‘the west’) have an obesity problem, so in that way anything that gets people in the gym would be a good thing.
No need to add perfume, people’s detergents already contain so much, just walking through the streets always freshens me up :-(
Maybe it’s just me, but why would you NEED to dry your clothes in one minute? Hang it on a line, come back later. Nature’s done the job for you for absolutely free. No energy input required. (I don’t even HAVE a clothesdryer at home. Everything gets hung out to dry. Works perfectly well and is much better for elastics and such)
You clearly don’t live in central Florida. Humidity is so high the cloths practically get wetter.
Can someone point out the energy cost (KWh) for drying 1 kg of clothes and also the max capacity
Need figures to justify the claims.
We hang clothes outside (porch) to dry in the sun/wind which is hard to beat for energy efficiency and the sun helps to whiten things.
How do they solve the shrinkage problem? All fast drying methods, including overly sunny day, damage clothes by noticably shrinking it.