Cleaning Space Laundry with Silver and Hydrogen Peroxide

May-13-17 Fabrics woven with silver-ion thread could help keep astronauts’ clothes cleaner, longer.

Since doing laundry in space is not an option, astronauts on the ISS typically wear their clothes for several months, jettisoning them overboard when they become too dirty. To increase astronaut comfort—and reduce waste—University of Arizona student Christina Morrison postulated the idea of combining the germ-killing abilities of silver and hydrogen peroxide to create an easier-to-launder fabric.

To test the theory, fabric swatches from silver-embedded antimicrobial socks were treated with low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide. In tests, the combination resulted in a 99.999 percent reduction of a common human bacteria, compared to less than 44 percent reduction on the untreated samples.

Image: Christian Morrison

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[NEWATLAS.COM]
[UANEWS.ARIZONA.EDU]

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