Washing machines have changed little since replacing the mangle, still requiring gallons of water and chemicals to get clothes clean. But a radical new idea from Xeros (Greek for 'dry'), the company set to list on Aim later this month, may change all that.
Spun out of Leeds University, the company has developed a new system which uses tiny, recyclable nylon polymer beads and just a fraction of the water. Trials in commercial laundries have gone well, and an IPO pencilled in for 25 March will raise up to £40m, valuing the business at £100m.
Clearly, the technology is exciting, but does require some explanation. Each machine looks very typical, except that the polymer beads are stored internally between washes. Beads are pumped against a separator, washed into the drum by water then worked through the clothes where the stain molecules are absorbed into the bead structure and locked away. They end up in a sump at the bottom where they are pulsed back to repeat the process.
Incredibly, each 25kg load needs 50kg of beads, which can be reused more than 500 times. Inventors point out that showering clothes with 1.5m beads, each the size of a grain of rice, gets your whites whiter than conventional machines which just run the clothes through a 'puddle' in the drum. Eventually, super absorbent beads might even do away with the need to wash whites separately. Trials have already demonstrated an 80 per cent saving in water and 50 per cent for detergents, while lower temperatures halve energy consumption.
Around 30 of Xeros's machines are either installed, or about to be installed in hotels and laundries across Europe and the US. Another 120 are pencilled in for 2014. Using five-year contracts and charging a monthly fee for equipment, training, maintenance as well as the beads, should generate predictable recurring revenues. It is, however, capital intensive and further fundraising is inevitable.
