Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Non-stick chewing gum!

Wouldn't it be great if gum never got stuck on your shoes, carpet, in your kids hair? Gum is popular, especially with kids. So if you have a kid, chances are your kid has chewed gum, whether you let them or not, and chances are you have had gum stuck in the strangest of places.

"Revolymer, a Bristol University spin-out company, claims that it has created a new material which can be added to gum that makes it much easier to remove from surfaces."

"The material is formed from long chains of molecules, called polymers, which have both water-loving (hydrophilic) and water-hating (hydrophobic), and therefore oil-loving, properties.

The polymer's affinity for oil means that it can be easily mixed into the rest of the ingredients needed to create chewing gum; but it is its attraction to water that gives it its non-stick abilities.

Chief Scientific Officer of Revolymer, Professor Terence Cosgrove, said: "The hydrophilic coating means that you always get a film of water around the gum and that is one of the reasons it is easy to remove - and, in some cases, doesn't stick at all.""
The only problem I see is that it may dissolve very fast in the mouth. Oh well small price to pay for the following results:

"The team also tested the gum on one of the most tricky surfaces - hair. Using the company CEO's daughter - who said she was due a haircut - as a volunteer, they attached commercial gum to one side of her hair and Rev7 to the other.

The commercial gum eventually had to be cut out, but Rev7 could be mostly removed using water, shampoo and a comb. "


There is no telling where and when this will be released into the United States though.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I stumbled upon your site today and just want to let you know that my wife is going to eat your blog up once she sees it. You deffinatly have a good niche going here. Keep up the great work!

Kid Tricks said...

Thanks! Glad to hear someone enjoy's our writings. We are going to try to bring science news closer to home in the future. In other words, news that will affect you within a few years at the most, and research that has definite conclusions, instead of more theoretical discoveries. Hopefully you and others will find something useful and perhaps amusing visiting this site. Thanks again for the kind words!