Negative Ion Clothes Cleaner!

A waterless clothes cleaner that cleans and refreshes garments in a few minutes has been developed at the National University of Singapore. The appliance uses negative ions, compressed air and deodorants to clean clothes.

The AirWash won the ElectroLux Design Lab 2005 Award. The jury selected AirWash as the winner because of its intuitive, ecological and beautiful design.

Industrial design students Wendy Chua, 21, and Gabriel Tan, 23, beat entries from 3,000 other students from over 88 countries. They said they were inspired by the technology in air purifiers, which uses negative ions to clump dirt and bacteria, making it easier for the dirt and bacteria particles to be removed. The negative ions are a natural cleaning agent.

The sleek and compact design is modelled after a waterfall, a natural negative ion generator.

With water prices going up everywhere (especialy in Malaysia) and humans becoming impatient, it was only reasonable to find someone designing a clothes cleaner that does not need water.

Note from Technophile: AirWash also does away with the expensive, time consuming task of going to the dry cleaners. They should also expect NASA to be knocking on their door, as this looks like something that might fit into the future of space travel!

:: Source: [Fast Company Magazine, March, 2006]
:: Country: Singapore
:: Innovation: Waterless, Detergentless Clothes Cleaner
:: Available: 2008 [Maybe]
:: Cost: Unknown