An international team of scientists has demonstrated the first soap that responds to magnets.
This means the soap and the materials that it dissolves can be removed easily by applying a magnetic field.
Experts say that with further development, it could find applications in cleaning up oil spills and waste water.
Details of the new soap, which contains iron atoms, are reported in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
It is similar to ordinary soap, but the atoms of iron help form tiny particles that are easily removed magnetically.
“If you’d have said about 10 years ago to a chemist: ‘Let’s have some soap that responds to magnets’, they’d have looked at you with a very blank face,” said co-author Julian Eastoe of the University of Bristol.
He told BBC News: “We were interested to see, if you went back to the chemical drawing board with the tool-kit of modern synthetic chemistry, if you could…design one.”
A droplet containing the soap is attracted to the magnet at left
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