Skip to main content

Toss that filthy sponge for an antimicrobial 3D printed scrubber

This may be one of the more useful things created with 3D printing so far: an antimicrobial kitchen scrubber that’s better than a sponge.

The scrubber is made out of Purement, an antimicrobial filament produced by Korean firm BnK. Creator Jacob Stanton, a Chicago-based product designer, devised it for a 3D design competition for MyMiniFactory that was intended to show off the benefits of Purement.

“Some quick research indicated that kitchen sponges are in fact one of the dirtiest things in a household, the typical sponge is about 200,000 times dirtier than a toilet seat. There are about 10 million bacteria per square inch in a kitchen sponge,” Stanton says.

Objects created with 3D printing can be pretty filthy as well. The layered constructions of 3D printing can be breeding grounds for bacteria like staphylococcus, colon bacillus, and salmonella, according to BnK. The company says that with Purement, “bacteria and germs find that the tiny nooks and crannies of 3D printed items aren’t so appealing, and thus the risk of spreading germs to your family is greatly reduced.”

BnK asserts that the antibacterial material in Purement has been certified by the SIAA (Society of Industrial technology for Antimicrobial Articles), and is antimicrobial-registered by the FDA and ROHS.

Stanton printed several designs with the filament, some of which sported undulating lines and spirals, and tested them out. He ultimately found that the one that worked best featured staggered protrusions. It could contour to nearly any surface, offered the most scrubbing area, was easy to clean, and held up to bending better than the other three designs.

The scrubber doesn’t hold soap very well, but “I have found that it works best as an abrasive scrubbing pad, for removing stuck-on debris from the dishes,” Stanton told 3Dprint.com. “I find that it works nicely on cutting boards, and I also lay it flat and use it to take gunk off of my nicer kitchen knives.”

The design files for the 3D printed scrubber are available to download on Thingiverse.

Editors' Recommendations

Steve Castle
Steve Castle’s fascination with technology began as a staff writer for luxury magazine Robb Report, where he reported on…
Fighting football injuries with 3D-printed, hyper-personalized pads
The Protect3d 3D scanning process.

If you’ve ever watched a movie about sports, you’ve seen it. It's that moment that occurs two-thirds of the way into the story, when the protagonists’ inevitable victory suddenly seems a lot less certain. Maybe the inspirational mentor winds up in the ER, muttering motivational slogans from a hospital bed. Perhaps the unorthodox coach wins over the team, only to be fired by management for thinking too far outside the box. Possibly the star lacrosse player has a crisis of faith and realizes he wants to be an acapella singer rather than a jock.

For the three co-founders of Protect3D, a real-life version of that moment took place between the second and fifth game of Duke University's football season several years ago, back when the company's founders were engineering students. The team’s starting quarterback was the recipient of a particularly tough sack during a game. He went down hard, and stayed down. Things looked bleak.

Read more
AMD’s 3D-stacked Ryzen 7 5800X3D is ‘world’s fastest gaming processor’
AMD CEO presenting new CPU.

The first processor to use a 3D V-Cache technology was announced at the big AMD CES 2022 keynote. The tech was first announced at Computex 2021, and fans have been eagerly awaiting a processor that will put it to use.

That processor is the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which seems like a strange place to start a new range of processors. AMD has its Ryzen 9 chips, after all. That's because the new Ryzen 7 can outclass AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X while gaming, despite using the same architecture.

Read more
Need a last-minute Halloween costume? Check out these 3D-printable getups
3D printed Halloween costumes

Still not sure what to dress up as for Halloween this year? Well, instead of frantically scrambling around town looking for the right shop with the right stuff, have you considered 3D printing your Halloween costume? Check out our list of 3D-printable masks and costume pieces to get all geared up for this year's spooking, then fire up that printer.

If you've already finished your costume and want to get started on your scary movie watchlist, we've put together a list of the best horror movies on Netflix.
Squid Game soldier mask

Read more