by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:12 PM ET, Mon February 25, 2019
A Copenhagen hotel is breaking new ground when it comes to maintaining the cleanliness of its guest rooms.
At the recently opened Hotel Ottilia, the rooms fully disinfect themselves each morning, without the assistance of housekeeping staff, Bloomberg has reported.
The rooms contain a proprietary ACT CleanCoat technology, which is activated by sunlight. (It's also transparent and odorless, in case you were wondering.) Apparently, the primary ingredient is titanium dioxide, which is also found in sunscreen.
Tests conducted by Denmark's National Research Centre for the Working Environment have found that the spay successfully breaks down a variety of microbes including influenza, salmonella, mold spores, and even allergens.
Rooms that are coated in the substance are able to purify the air for as long as one year, removing contaminants such as cigarette smoke or other odors, according to Bloomberg.
"We've been testing this system for two years," Karim Nielsen, chief executive officer of Brockner Hotels, the Ottilia's parent company, told Bloomberg. Nielsen likened the invisible coating to Teflon.
First implemented at the nearby Hotel Herman K, the two hotels are the world's first to use the self-cleaning substance.
"What really sold us on it was that it would make life so much easier for our staff," Nielsen told Bloomberg.
With the Act CleanCoat technology in place, housekeepers no longer have to apply chemical detergents and cleaners or breathe their fumes.
Nielsen estimates that each room costs $2,500 to cover with CleanCoat.
"The technology is expensive," he says, "but we've reduced the labor load by 50 percent. It's giving our staff a much easier day and reducing our water consumption," he said.
Scaling this new innovation to hotels far and wide, however, could be a challenge. A guest room must be fully emptied of furniture in order to spray it with CleanCoat. What's more, the formula has to be reapplied each year.
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