An ingredient that kills bacteria and fungi may find its way to a self-cleaning paint that may free your smartphone or tablets's touchscreen from smudges.

Researchers are taking a closer look at titanium dioxide, the substance in paint and cosmetics that can damage bacteria and fungi, tech site Mashable reported.

“If you apply a thin coating of titanium dioxide to a glass surface such as a smartphone screen, the skin oils and fingerprints gradually disappear from the display by themselves,” it quoted Michael Vergöhl of the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Germany, who leads sun-activated surfaces research, as saying.

Mashable said the substance, once exposed to sunlight, creates free radicals that can damage the DNA of bacteria and fungi.

It said the researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology studied the substance's effect with a test on plastic lawn chairs.

During the test, they coated the armrests of some plastic lawn chairs with titanium dioxide and left other chairs untouched.

They sprayed a mixture of bacteria, moss, algae and fungi on the chairs and left them outdoors. After two years, the untreated armrests gathered a layer of grime while the treated ones appeared clean and white, Mashable quoted Fraunhofer as saying.

But Mashable also noted the glass coating needs an hour of sunlight to work, though previous self-cleaning screens needed up to three days of sun.

With the findings, Fraunhofer said their next goal is to develop antibacterial solutions that can be activated by indoor lights, too. — LBG, GMA News