How do the Magic Cleaning Eraser Sponges Work?
Eraser-like goods that stain you thought you were stuck with for good are now hot models in the cleaning aisle of the supermarket. For instance, Mr. Clean sells a line called Magic Erasers, and Scotch-Brite offers a product called the Easy Erasing Pad.
The secret behind these types of erasers is a material commonly called melamine foam. With just a little water, melamine foam can dig in and remove stains that other products can't touch. Kids go crazy with the crayons? Co-workers leave a trail of scuff marks wherever they walk? Erasers made with melamine foam might be just what you need.
Stain removal isn't the only thing this special foam is useful for. It's been around for about 20 years and has a variety of applications, such as sound insulation (whether to improve a room's acoustics or dampen excess noise) and temperature insulation (whether to protect against very hot or cold temperatures). It's just in recent times that developers discovered its potential as a household cleaning tool.
A few melamine foam's specific physical features make it a great stain remover, and we'll jump into what those characteristics are on the next page.
The Warning Label
Melamine foam erasers work well; but on surfaces that are painted, polished, or easily scratched, they might work a little too well. It's recommended to test the eraser on a small, preferably unnoticeable, part of whatever you're looking to clean before you dive on in.
Cleaning sponge erasers, Easy Erasing Pads, and similar products all have the same key factor: melamine foam. Melamine nano sponge foam is formed differently from other cleaning products and only need water to effectively clean most stains -- no chemical cleaners or cleaner are needed. The only weakness is that melamine foam erasers wear out quickly -- just like pencil erasers do.
Externally looked, however, melamine foam erasers look and feel just like other ordinary sponges. To view the crucial properties of melamine foam, you need to go down to the microscopic level. This is because when melamine resin cures into foam, its microstructure becomes very hard -- almost as hard as glass -- causing it to perform on stains a lot like super-fine sandpaper. You may be asking yourself, if this foam is almost as hard as glass, then how can it be like a sponge? Because it's a special type of porous foam.
Closed-cell foam is easier to visualize, so let's start there. Types of closed-cell foam are usually the more rigid cause they retain most of their air pockets intact, like a bunch of balls all crammed together. For open-cell foam (typically the more flexible) imagine that those balls have burst, but that some sections of their casings remain. You can picture a squishy sea sponge as an example. In airy melamine foam, only a very limited amount of casing stays in place, and the strands that do are located where the edges of several air pockets overlapped. The foam is flexible because each tiny strand is so slender and small that bending the entire eraser is easy.
The cavity-ridden open micro-structure of melamine foam is where the second major boost to its stain-removing capabilities comes in. Apart from being able to scrape at stains with extremely hard microscopic filaments, with a few quick runs of the eraser, the stain has already started to come away. That's aided by the fact that the dirt is pulled into the open spaces between the spindly skeletal strands and bound there. These two factors combined make this next-generation eraser seem almost magical.
Ready to start erasing some stains around your house? Mr. Topeco magic eraser will surprise you a lot. Now that we've uncovered the secret to melamine foam erasers, check out some of the pictures that follow for more interesting information.
