how do the Magic Cleaning Eraser Sponges Work?


Eraser-like goods that stain you thought you were stuck with for good are now a staple in the cleaning aisle in the market. 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 clean up 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, like 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 freshly that developers discovered its potential as a cleaning product.

Certainmelamine foam's specific physical properties 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 tiny, preferably unnoticeable, portion of whatever you're looking to clean before you dive on in.


 Melamine cleaning erasers, Easy Erasing Pads, and comparable products all have the same key factor: melamine foam. Melamine foam erasers are formed differently from other cleaning products and only need water to effectively clean most stains -- no chemical cleaners or cleaning media are required. The only shortcoming is that melamine foam erasers wear out quickly -- just like pencil erasers do.

from the outside

from the look of it, however, melamine foam erasers look and feel just like any other sponge. 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 open-cell foam.

Closed-cell foam is easier to visualize, so let's start there. Types of closed-cell foam are usually more rigid in that 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. Regardless of 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 mystery of melamine foam erasers, check out some of the pictures that follow for more interesting information.