Never Wash Another Diaper or Menstrual Rag

Sure, I know that most people use disposable diapers and sanitary napkins or tampons. But now, using new titanium diapers and sanitary rags, they can keep using the same ones over and over. Why? Because the new titanium oxide nanocrystal materials obliterate organic material. You may have read earlier this year about the titanium dioxide nanocrystal-impregnated wool fibers that literally consume red wine stains. But those voracious nanocrystals will not just drink wine. They'll eat or drink virtually any organic material you care to feed them. They positively love colonic bacteria, and bacteria of all kinds.

When exposed to sunlight, these exciting wee crystals will even split water into oxygen and hydrogen. And now, it is becoming much easier and cheaper to create these diminutive crystalline obliterators, thanks to work done in Australia and China.

The new crystals - which are more than five times more effective at splitting water than unmodified anatase - were made by adjusting the crystal structure on the surface of the crystals. These surfaces, known as facets, typically form in the most thermally stable configuration, designated {101}, which contains mostly 6-coordinate titanium atoms.

However, an alternative surface configuration called {001} where most of the titanium atoms are only 5-coordinate, has been found to be far more reactive. 'The high percentage of "unsaturated" titanium atoms in {001} allows stronger interactions with adsorbed molecules, such as water, resulting in a surface that is many times more reactive,' explains Max Lu, the leader of the team at the University of Queensland, Australia.

...The team demonstrated their results by making crystals at a uniform size of about one micrometre. Whereas only a few percent of the facets in naturally-occurring anatase crystals are the more reactive {001} kind, around 50 per cent of the facets in the new crystals are of this type. __RSC__via__NextEnergyNews

So you may actually want to buy two titanium diapers for your next baby. One for it to wear, and the other to filter your home water, and to generate hydrogen for your home and automobile fuel cells.

But you will only need to buy one titanium sanitary napkin or tampon, unless you have multiple menstruating females in your home with synchronised menstrual cycles. Babies are too young to question your judgment when you provide them with hand-me-down, never-washed titanium diapers from earlier siblings. But teenaged daughters can be a bit fastidious about things like that, so be forewarned.

For the cost of one more titanium diaper, you can provide clean air for your household by duct-taping one of the diapers over your central air and heat outlet. Think of it. Clean air, clean water, free hydrogen . . . and endless recyclable nappies. Not a bad deal.