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23 November 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Tania Allen
Dr Jana Vermaas and Ketshepileone Matlhoko are working on research that leaves your washing clean and fresh without the use of any detergents, which is also beneficial to the environment.

Cold water or hot water? Omo or Skip? Laundry blues is a reality in most households and when you add stains to the equation, then what was supposed to be part of your weekly household routine, becomes frustrating and time consuming. 

Researchers at the University of the Free State (UFS) are conducting research that is putting a whole new environmentally friendly spin on laundry day.

Sustainability and environmental conservation

Dr Jana Vermaas, Lecturer in the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development at the UFS, is passionate about textiles and sustainability – almost a decade ago, she conducted a study on the efficacy of anolyte as a disinfectant for textiles.

She describes the process: “During electrochemical activation, a dilute solution of natrium chloride/salt passes through a cylindrical electrolytic cell where the anodic and cathodic chambers are separated. Two separate streams of electrochemically activated water are produced. Anolyte as water was produced at the positive electrode and has a low pH, high oxidation-reduction potential and contains dissolved chloride, oxygen, and hydroxyl radical. It also has an antimicrobial effect.”

The benefits of this process are in line with her enthusiasm for environmental conservation. 

According to Dr Vermaas, the amount of water and chemicals used to clean textile articles is massive. “Chemicals used to disinfect, for example, hospital laundry, are hazardous. Not all laundries in the industry have a closed loop system or try to remove the chemicals before the wastewater is discarded.”

“Different amounts of detergents have various effects on our fauna and flora. Due to their low biodegradability, toxicity, and high absorbance of particles, detergents can reduce the natural water quality, cause pH changes in soil and water, lead to eutrophication (too many nutrients), reduce light transmission, and increase salinity in water sources.”

“But with the catholyte and anolyte process, water returns to its original status, which means that the water solution becomes inactive again after production where it existed in a metastable state while containing many free radicals and a variety of molecules for 48 hours. Thus, no chemicals are left in the wastewater. The water can therefore be recycled, not as potable water but, for example, to flush toilets or to water plants.

“We should do what we can to save water,” she says. 

Should you, like Dr Vermaas, also feel strongly about protecting the environment and want to obtain one of these machines that leaves your washing clean and fresh without the use of any detergents, you will be able to find such an appliance in South Arica. However, it does not come cheap. “It is a bit costly for residential use, but might be more accessible in the future,” states Dr Vermaas, who is of the opinion that it is a more sustainable option for commercial laundries.

Detergency properties and colourfastness 

Recently, more research has been conducted on this topic, but with a focus on the detergency properties of the catholyte to clean different textile fibres (natural and synthetic). Catholyte, she explains, is water produced at the negative electrode with a high pH, low oxidation-reduction potential, containing alkaline minerals. It also has surface active agents that increase the wetting properties, and it is an antioxidant. 

“A master’s student in the department, Ketshepileone Matlhoko, will be submitting her dissertation at the end of November on the possibility of using the catholyte as a scouring agent to clean raw wool,” says Dr Vermaas. 

The department is also conducting studies to investigate the influence of both catholyte and anolyte on colourfastness.

*Graphic: Production of electrolysed water (Nakae and Indaba, 2000). Diagram: Supplied



News Archive

I-DENT-I-TIES to shine at the Free State Arts Festival
2016-07-08

Description: I-DENT-I-TIES  Tags: I-DENT-I-TIES

Erwin Maas with members of the student cast from the
Qwaqwa Campus. They are, from left: Mpho Xaba,
Lebohang Molefe and Tankiso Mofokeng.

Imagine this: A student cast from a rural campus; Production team consisting of a New York-based Dutch director, a South African screen and stage legend, a The Hague/Vienna-based Dutch theatre designer, and a Vienna-based Serbian performance-craft-artist and designer.

This sounds like a far-fetched flight of the imagination. But it is real and it is called ‘I-DENT-I-TIES’, a large-scale interdisciplinary performance project with international theatre professionals and students from the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus.

According to the  director of the project, Erwin Maas, the production explores the ‘dents’ and ‘ties’ of both individual and communal identification and distinctiveness and does this through the famous Basotho story of ‘Moshanyana Sankatana’ as a point of departure.

“We explore questions like ‘what are dents in our society as well as in ourselves’, ‘what ties me to who I really am and who I want to be’, ‘what does it mean to be me’, ‘what does it mean to be South African’,” said Maas, who has been working on this project since last year.

The production also celebrates personal, communal, and universal narratives and identities through song, dance, story-telling, and music. It explores the past, the present, and the future.

“This production will certainly reveal an extraordinary journey into what makes us unique and binds us together,” he added during the rehearsals that started in May at the Qwaqwa Campus.

Maas has teamed up with a well-known South African film and stage legend, Jerry Mofokeng, as consultant. Mofokeng, who introduced Maas to the ‘Sankatana’ story, has featured on a number of critically-acclaimed films that include ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’ as well as the Academy Award-winning ‘Tsotsi’. Maas has also worked with the Hague/Vienna-based Dutch designer Nico de Rooij and Djana Covic, a Vienna-based Serbian designer.

The production is a partnership between the UFS Student Affairs, Vrystaat Arts Festival, the Programme for Innovation in Artform Development, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa. It will premiere at the Free State Arts Festival, held in Bloemfontein from 11 to 16 July 2016. This will be followed by a performance at the Qwaqwa Campus on 19 July 2016.

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