LiquiGlide, Non-Toxic Nanocoating Is So Slippery All The Ketchup Comes Out Of A Bottle, Wins Award

LiquiGlide, a project of the Varanasi Group at MIT, is a slippery, biocompatible coating that could be used to line ketchup bottles and other kinds of food packaging. LiquiGlide won the Audience Choice award at the 2012 MIT $100K Business Plan Contest.


Is it toxic? Does this coating use any type of harmful nanotechnology?

Nope! The coating is made entirely from food materials; no nanoparticles to worry about. Even if you scraped off the coating with a knife and ate it, it would be completely harmless and flavorless.



It’s just ketchup and mayonnaise, besides the frustration of getting it out what’s the big deal?

With condiment bottles there’s still a bunch of food left in the bottle when you throw it out. By our calculations, about 1 million pounds of food gets thrown out each year worldwide. Also, those squeeze bottles need a big cap. By eliminating the need for such a big cap, we’d save 25,000 tons of petroleum-based plastics each year.

Won’t people buy fewer bottles if they’re able to get every last bit of food? Isn’t this bad for food companies?

How long has that almost-empty bottle been sitting in the side door of your fridge because it doesn’t look empty? Some condiments are so sticky that the sides are completely covered, even though the bottle is nearly empty. A LiquiGlide coating will let you see exactly how much food is left in the bottle!

Can the coating be put on anything else?

Researchers have been able to put it on just about everything we’ve tried so far: glass, plastic, metal, ceramic…


Contacts and sources: 

MIT