An eminent polymer chemist has helped develop “catalytic clothing” which can break down harmful atmospheric pollution such as nitrous oxide arising from industrial and automotive sources.
Professor Tony Ryan, a pro-vice chancellor at the
Ryan collaborated with fashion designer Helen Storey, whose creations have been worn by Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince. He based the idea on rough calculations done while attending a "really boring meeting" at the UK's Royal Society of Chemistry, working out that the fibres of his suit had a total surface area of about 80 square meters.
Ryan said: “The fibres are long and thin, so they have a very high surface area per unit mass. We already knew that we could get self-cleaning windows and paints. But I thought if I put a [titanium dioxide] catalyst on [the fabric] surface I can do a lot of environmental clean-up.”
Working with Ecover, manufacturers of ecological cleaning products, Storey and Ryan hope to deliver the technology through a fabric conditioner, with titanium dioxide nanoparticles attaching themselves to clothes during a normal laundry cycle.
Storey said: "Rather than going down the traditional fashion route, which makes a brand a precondition for something to happen, it's taking advantage of human behavior as it exists – we all wash our clothes, we all walk in the street.
"We are empowering people's existing wardrobes with a technology that will allow them to have a significant impact on the quality of air we breathe."
Storey discovered that the process works particularly well on denim jeans. She pointed out that there are more pairs of jeans than people on the planet.
Ryan reckons that a 500 gramme pair of jeans could absorb around two grammes of pollution.