![]() SpotLESS Materials is mainly focused on selling its products to industrial partners, but products also are available for consumer purchase on their website, which launched in November 2019 right before World Toilet Day. We hope our coatings make it possible to use various products for longer periods of time.” “We want to reduce time, effort, cost, and water and chemical waste. “A big reason we made this technology was to be able to remove waste with little to no water and to make surfaces stay clean longer,” Boschitsch said. LESS can be easily sprayed onto a variety of surfaces, including glass, ceramic, porcelain, plastics and metals, allowing those surfaces to stay cleaner for longer. My research group was known for developing slippery surfaces inspired by the pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant that can repel insects with a super slippery surface, and so that’s how we got started on developing a new type of nonstick coating product.” ![]() “One challenge the researcher faced is that human waste is very sticky, and there was no existing coating that could repel human waste. “Our technology is called LESS - Liquid Entrenched Smooth Surface, and it started back in 2015 when my research group was approached by a collaborator tasked with developing a sewerless, waterless toilet for the developing world,” Wong said. The team started off marketing the product as a way to make cleaning toilets easier, but has since expanded to other applications, including mirrors, car windshields and more. The spotLESS Materials signature coating makes any surface super slippery, making it difficult for dirt, grime and waste to cling to surfaces. SpotLESS Materials was co-founded by Birgitt Boschitsch, who earned her doctorate in mechanical engineering from Penn State’s College of Engineering, and Tak-Sing Wong, associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering and the Wormley Family Early Career Professor of Engineering at Penn State. The company's total funds raised, including investments, National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and Phase II awards, and prizes, is more than $2.8 million since its launch in May 2018. Penn State-affiliated startup spotLESS Materials, which sells its super slippery coating technology as an assistive cleaning product, has raised more than $1.3 million of total venture capital funding to date, including $900,000 in a seed round that closed on Dec.
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