Wipe It Out: Understanding the Size and Surface Area of Nanofoams in Cleaning Stains

Foams have proven their worth in the modern world. Moreover, foam structure has a large amount of surface area due to its many pores, allowing the foam to capture and absorb various microparticles and fluids. The development of nanotechnology has led to the production of nanoporous foams, which exhibit distinct properties such as trapping nanoparticles and absorbing a wide variety of liquids. This emergence of nanoporous materials has led to the development of an activity. The goal of this research is to create an activity to explain the effect of surface area in foams (e.g., cellulose, polyurethane, and melamine foam) of different pore sizes to high school students and the general public. These foams were used to clean different surfaces to identify the ideal surface for the activity. It was determined that linoleum was the most effective surface to differentiate the efficiency of the foams. The performance of the foams was evaluated by the amount of swipes needed to clean the surface with different stains (e.g., coffee, soda, crayons, and permanent marker). In addition, the water absorption efficiency of each foam material was measured quantitatively. SEM (scanning electron microscope) and Celestron® microscopes were used to visualize and measure the approximate pore size of these foams. In the laboratory tests, the melamine foams cleaned the stains in the linoleum most efficiently. We conclude the most absorbent foams were those with smaller pore size, melamine and cellulose. Future investigations will concentrate on the absorbance properties regarding foam pore size and structure type.