Engineers at the University of Toronto have been working on means to prevent microplastic fibers from shedding from synthetic fabrics during laundry cycles. Their solution: a two-layer coating made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes, which are linear, single polymer chains grown from a substrate to form a nanoscale surface layer.  Experiments conducted by the team, which is led by Professor Kevin Golovin, showed that this coating can significantly reduce microfiber shedding of nylon cloth...