Wearing pair of jeans could soon help clean environment: study

Soon, jeans wearers could help clean the dirty air around them by simply walking about in their favourite pair of Wranglers or Levis.

That's because University of Sheffield scientist Tony Ryan and London College of Fashion artist and designer Helen Storey have come up with a laundry additive called Catalytic Clothing (CatClo), which when mixed in with normal detergent turns jeans and other clothes into magnets for some of our worst air pollutants including, Nitrogen oxide (NO2).

The jeans then works the same way as catalytic converters in cars, the Independent reported.

The idea of catalytic jeans came to Chemist Professor Ryan and the fashion designer Professor Storey after they discovered that when denim is covered with tiny particles of a mineral called titanium dioxide, it reacts with air and light to break down harmful emissions in the air.

Nitrogen oxide (NO2) pollutants – produced mainly by traffic and factories – are then neutralised and simply washed away when the garment is laundered, they claimed.

With toxic emissions killing an estimated 1.3 million people a year worldwide, the resulting improvement in air quality could significantly reduce deaths and respiratory illnesses such as asthma, the designers believed.

In 2004, the pair started working on a green science and fashion collaboration called Wonderland, which developed into Catalytic Clothing. Their eureka moment came when they realised that microscopic particles of titanium oxide, which is contained in glass, paving stones and sun cream, worked as a pollution-buster when sprayed on clothes.

They found that the particles were able to grip on to the millions of fibres in the material and had a greater effect due to the constant movement of the fabric while being worn. This is because titanium oxide needs light and airflow to catalyse and turn noxious gases into harmless, water-soluble nitrates.

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