Freaky non-stick coating keeps ketchup flowing

[Video Link] "MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith and his team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group … came up with LiquiGlide, a 'super-slippery' coating which makes the insides of the bottle so frictionless that the sludgy goo inside just slides out like water."

MIT’s Freaky Non-Stick Coating Keeps Ketchup Flowing

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

Gordon Sleigh

And it only gives you 7 kinds of cancer! 3 of them treatable!
- http://www.kmoser.com kmoser
  
  I would have guessed 57 kinds.
- bzishi
  
  Just like microwave ovens give you cancer, right? Do you remember that cancer scare?
  
  Technology does not automatically mean bad, even if it involves food. Caution is advised, fear mongering is not.
  - robdobbs
    
    So Bisphenol A is okay again?
    - http://hgomersall.wordpress.com/ heng
      
      non sequitur anyone?
Antinous / Moderator

But….how will the shampoo and conditioner manufacturers get me to waste that last three ounces?
- Judas Peckerwood
  
  You’ll be wasting more with everyday use through over-pouring.
  - penguinchris
    
    You just need to combine this with a good nozzle tip. There have been lots of really cool nozzles in various products coming out the past few years – ones that somehow prevent the tip from getting covered with stuff, ones that are very controllable and which prevent the tip from getting covered, etc.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      The problem is that economy size containers come with a pump top, which not only makes it impossible to get the bottom half inch of what’s in there, but also holds a fair amount of goo hostage. I’ve taken to pulling off the pump top and transferring things to honey squeeze bottles.
- travtastic
  
  I’ve always expected one day to find all the shampoo bottles in weird shapes to maximize surface area, waste, and rage.
  - http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
    
    Well, I must say I’m slightly perplexed when I find a bottle of viscous fluid WITHOUT the exit placed at the bottom these days.
http://twitter.com/mtmole Mr. Mole

I’m looking forward to the slow buildup of liqui-glide in my intestinal tract. Way better than metamucil.
- Aeron
  
  Taking a dump just became that much easier.
- chaopoiesis
  
  Switching from inside to out, this shows great promise as … um… permanent lube.
Grahamers2002

I guess Carly will have to revise her song-turned-jingle: http://youtu.be/4NwP3wes4M8

{Singing} “Anticipation…is a big annoying waste of time in our modern must-go society.”
Chris Ball

Great! Now instead of wasting ketchup because I can’t get it out of the bottle, I’ll waste ketchup by accidentally pouring it all over the place!
http://twitter.com/Selkiechick Selkiechick

I thought the problem with ketchup was viscocity and the backup in the neck of the bottle, not the sauce sticking to the sides…
- Robert Cruickshank
  
  That’s both a bug and a feature. Ketchup is shear-thinning fluid, so it wants to stay put unless there’s a strong shearing force on it. This both keeps it in the bottle and helps it cling to the fries. As awesome as this is, I’m having a hard time imaging what happens when it gets to the mouth of the bottle.
  
  Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on fluids, just some guy who like to put cornstarch and xanthan gum in stuff.
  - DrDave
    
    Word of the day: thixotropic
    - PNWchemist
      
      Chem 121 lectures are replaying in my head.
    - Robert Cruickshank
      
      I was going to pull that one out, but I can never keep the difference between shear thinning and thixotropic straight in my head. Wikipedia, at least, says ketchup is both.
jgs

OK, I’m not excited to have this stuff in my food either… but I have to confess that the video made me crack a big grin, because damn, that’s cool.
bo1n6bo1n6

Olestra 2.o
- http://twitter.com/Selkiechick Selkiechick
  
  To be fair, Olestra’s problem was not it’s chemical makeup, but the fact no one had thought through what the biological ramifications were of working as it was designed and NOT having the body digest the grease at the usual point in the digestive tract.
  - nox
    
    I thought it was that they hadn’t anticipated how much people would eat.
    
    Olestra’s fine in moderation.
    - bkad
      
      That was my understanding too, but rather than blame the consumers, I would blame the developers and regulators who did not test the product in realistic consumption scenarios. Thankfully, though, the stuff is still on the market… just hard to find.
      - http://twitter.com/ManekiNico Maneki Nico
        
        Spishak Cholestra – 10% less anal leakage.
bcsizemo

So if they have patented the shit out of it when do we get to see the chemical formula? I don’t care if it was made from food safe products. I’ve seen plenty of non-food safe products combined to produce food safe results – the opposite is certainly true as well.
Max Hoagland

im sure the ketchup manufactures will quickly jump on this since faster flowing ketchup equates with more ketchup consumption.
corydodt

I’ll miss the days of setting one bottle on top of another upside-down, to collect the remnants in one place. I actually kind of enjoyed that.
- James B
  
  I still do that with liquid hand soap.
http://illustratorhints.com/ Jesseham

Introducing: 2030′s BPA…
hobomike

If it’s so damn super-slippery, how does it stick to the glass?
- travtastic
  
  Why Teflon Sticks to the Pan
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Where did I put that can of Universal Solvent?
    - travtastic
      
      I used the last of it making this morning’s unobtanium smoothies!
      - Donald Petersen
        
        Mmmm! Sure goes down smooth!
robdobbs

I was hoping that this was just a case of new and improved glass and not some potentially toxic coating: http://phys.org/news/2012-04-glass-anti-fogging-self-cleaning-free-glare.html
CaptainPedge

I see your sauce bottle and raise you a shoe!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7is6r6zXFDc
- bo1n6bo1n6
  
  I need this…. Now.
- Godfree
  
  It’s… Super hydrophobic fabric expialidocious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious…
  - CaptainPedge
    
    Brava!
penguinchris

Does nobody eat food that comes in squeeze bottles from the past couple years or use shampoo/etc. that costs more than $1?

They’ve already invented better nozzles to control the flow of a substance from the bottle. I guess it’s easier with a squeeze bottle, but with a little tweaking you could easily get one of these new nozzles to squirt out the substance in amounts controlled by how hard you tap the bottom of the bottle.

In any case, this is a nightmare for me – ketchup that just won’t stop flowing. Ketchup is not the only thing that tastes vile to me (anything with vinegar does) but it holds a special place on my list of foods I avoid, because I’ve been avoiding it since I was a kid. It’s my food arch-nemesis.
http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

Good lord when did BB turn into a Luddite support group?

Sure, we need to make sure their substance is non-toxic, but that doesn’t minimize the sheer greatness of this. Just thinking about all the wasted food/energy/etc that will be saved is amazing.

That said, for the hypochondriacs, think about the number of surfaces manufactured food touches, many of which are cleaned and treated with industrial products, before it reaches your mouth.
- Fnordius
  
  I think the cost of this new coating will make it less attractive for disposable containers, but for something like a condiment container for the table? Sure!
  
  I think this has non-food usage as well, for storing other thick, sticky, gooey stuff as well. More efficient vats and pipelines in factories, for example. Or water traps under the sink that are more resistant to letting gunk grow in them (as long as you don’t scratch the coating, which is a given, alas, so scratch that idea). Ketchup is just a clever demo fluid.
  
  But you do highlight an interesting trend, that BoingBoing has been attracting a certain Luddite faction recently among the rest of us happy mutants. I think the recent rash of articles about not using soap, not washing jeans or using hands instead of utensils is to blame.
http://www.lamidesign.com/plans lava

Oh great, now my kid will empty a whole ketchup bottle on the dinner plate.
parfae

Can we put this on dishes, and never wash them again?
- http://whimsicalacious.tumblr.com/ Patrick McGorrill
  
  They say the coating can get scratched off by harder materials. http://www.liqui-glide.com/sample-page/ But maybe it could work if you have a set of wooden utensils? Depends on how hard this coating is I guess.
  I wonder if it might react somehow to very warm foods. And it would definitely make it much more difficult to keep a heap of food on your plate as you carry it from the kitchen to the table. But, man, I would love a mixing bowl or two with this stuff, for sure.
pjcamp

Great. Now you can have an entire bottle of ketchup on every burger.
http://twitter.com/TheRedMonk01 Red Monk

Is it just me or dose the normal ketchup seem to be flowing a bit to easy?
Stephen Anderson

It will never sell. The labels keep slipping off.
Dean W. Armstrong

It’s because we’ve been burned many times before by corporations who have captured the regulators who should be protecting consumers, instead of allowing plenty of chemicals that have been banned for consumer use elsewhere, or without proper safety testing. We’ve become cynical to anything, because of past and continuing experiences.
- bkad
  
  I can understand that, but I try to remember the news (and especially more activist sites like boing boing) have a strong negative bias. No one publishes news stories like, “food additive used for decades, still completely safe” or “regulatory agency rejects dangerous product, approves beneficial one”. And they shouldn’t; one doesn’t need to give bonus points to people for doing their jobs correctly. But the news does support an availability heuristic.
  
  Beyond that, and this is personal opinion, I think science and engineering is awesome. This idea makes me really excited. I think of possibilities. There’s plenty of time to shoot down people’s dreams later; why can’t we take a position that science/engineering/making is awesome until proven otherwise?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    There’s plenty of time to shoot down people’s dreams later; why can’t we take a position that science/engineering/making is awesome until proven otherwise?
    
    Well, there are the tiny issues of morbidity, mortality, fetal anomalies, etc. that have followed the launch of all kinds of exciting new science projects. Why is it that science folks always seem to be champions of skepticism….except when it involves releasing new products to the public and the environment without adequate study?
Jeremy Mizell

Some douche bag DMCA’ed the video.