Caption: Spongesuit
bikini created by engineers at UC Riverside and designers
at Eray Carbajo.
Illustration credit: Eray Carbajo
Description: Illustration
of spongesuit bikini top.
(October 15, 2015) UC
Riverside engineers are part of a team that won an international design
competition for creating a swimsuit that cleans water as people swim
A material created by University of California, Riverside
engineers is the key component of a swimsuit that won an international design
competition for its ability to clean water as a person swims.
The reusable material, which they call Sponge, is derived
from heated sucrose, a form of sugar. It has a highly porous structure that is
super hydrophobic, meaning it repels water, but also absorbs harmful
contaminants.
“This is a super material that is not harmful to the
environment and very cost effective to produce,” said Mihri Ozkan, an
electrical engineering professor at UC Riverside’s Bourns College of
Engineering.
Caption: Components
of the Spongesuit bikini. Illustration credit: Eray Carbajo
Description: Components
of the Spongesuit bikini.
Ozkan, along with her husband and fellow engineering
professor, Cengiz Ozkan, current Ph.D. student, Daisy Patino, and Hamed Bay,
who recently earned his Ph.D. after working with the Ozkan’s, began developing
the material about four years ago for applications such as cleaning up oil or
chemical spills or desalinizing water.
They also believe the unique water-repelling nature of the
material could be used in paint applied to airplanes and satellites or as part
of electromagnetic shields for such things as unmanned aerial vehicles.
The idea to incorporate the material into wearable
technology, such as the swimsuit, came from Pinar Guvenc, Inanc Eray and
Gonzalo Carbajo, partners of Eray Carbajo, an architecture and design firm
based in New York City and Istanbul.
The team visited the Ozkan’s labs and worked with them to
design the swimsuit. Their design won first place at the Reshape 15 Wearable
Technology Competition and will be recognized at the Maker Faire in Rome on
Oct. 16.