Novel plastics using renewable signal chemistry to remove bacteria in water. This project plans to develop synthetic plastic surfaces that continuously generate nitric oxide to deter the formation of biofilms. Plastic surfaces exposed to aqueous environments rapidly become covered by a film of bacteria, which can cause infection. Trace levels of generated nitric oxide can combat this problem by breaking up existing bacterial biofilms. Current research has developed plastics that continuously gen ....Novel plastics using renewable signal chemistry to remove bacteria in water. This project plans to develop synthetic plastic surfaces that continuously generate nitric oxide to deter the formation of biofilms. Plastic surfaces exposed to aqueous environments rapidly become covered by a film of bacteria, which can cause infection. Trace levels of generated nitric oxide can combat this problem by breaking up existing bacterial biofilms. Current research has developed plastics that continuously generate nitric oxide, but not for extended periods of time. This project’s approach is significant because it avoids bacterial resistance to the nitric oxide treatment. Applications of this technology may include removing biofilms from environments such as water filtration devices and consumable medical surfaces.Read moreRead less
Fast stimuli-responsive polymer hydrogels as a new class of draw agent for forward osmosis desalination. The ability to extract fresh water from saline water can be important in areas such as desalination and other industrial applications. In this project new materials will be developed to perform this operation at a much lower energy cost than similar processes, whilst also improving the purity of the separated water.