Tag Archives: Flinders University

Textiles fight back bacteria with electronics

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These textiles according to an April 24, 2023 news item on SpaceDaily do a little more than fight off bacteria (as impressive as that is),

Scientists from around the world have developed a simple metallic coating treatment for clothing or wearable textiles which can repair itself, repel dangerous bacteria from the wearer and even monitor a person’s electrocardiogram (ECG) heart signals.

Researchers from North Carolina State University [US], Flinders University [Australia] and South Korea [Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU] say the conductive circuits created by liquid metal (LM) particles can transform wearable electronics and open doors for further development of human-machine interfaces, including soft robotics and health monitoring systems.

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An April 25, 2023 Flinders University press release (also on EurekAlert but published April 26, 2023), which originated the news item, provides more technical details about the conductive, self-healing textiles, Note: Links have been removed,

The ‘breathable’ electronic textiles have special connectivity powers to ‘autonomously heal’ itself even when cut, says the US team led by international expert in the field, Professor Michael Dickey.  

When the coated textiles are pressed with significant force, the particles merge into a conductive path, which enables the creation of circuits that can maintain conductivity when stretched, researchers say.   

“The conductive patterns autonomously heal when cut by forming new conductive paths along the edge of the cut, providing a self-healing feature which makes these textiles useful as circuit interconnects, Joule heaters and flexible electrodes to measure ECG signals,” says Flinders University medical biotechnology researcher Dr Khanh Truong, senior co-author in a new article in Advanced Materials Technologies. 

The technique involves dip-coating fabric into a suspension of LM particles at room temperature.  

“Evenly coated textiles remain electrically insulating due to the native oxide that forms on the LM particles. However, the insulating effect can be removed by compressing the textile to rupture the oxide and thereby allow the particles to percolate.  

“This enables the creation of conductive circuits by compressing the textile with a patterned mold. The electrical conductivity of the circuits increases by coating more particles on the textile.”  

As well the LM-coated textiles offer effective antimicrobial protection against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus.  

This germ repellent ability not only gives the treated fabric protective qualities but prevents the porous material from becoming contaminated if worn for and extended time, or put in contact with other people.    

The particles of gallium-based liquid metals have low melting point, metallic electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, effectively zero vapor pressure, low toxicity and antimicrobial properties.  

LMs have both fluidic and metallic properties so show great promise in applications such as microfluidics, soft composites, sensors, thermal switches and microelectronics.  

One of the advantages of LM is that it can be deposited and patterned at room temperature onto surfaces in unconventional ways that are not possible with solid metals. 

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Liquid Metal Coated Textiles with Autonomous Electrical Healing and Antibacterial Properties (2023) by Jiayi Yang, Praneshnandan Nithyanandam, Shreyas Kanetkar, Ki Yoon Kwon, Jinwoo Ma, Sooik Im, Ji-Hyun Oh, Mohammad Shamsi, Mike Wilkins, Michael Daniele Tae-il Kim, Huu Ngoc Nguyen, Vi Khanh Truong and Michael D Dickey. Advanced Materials Technologies Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue 2202183 DOI: 10.1002/admt.202202183 First published: 02 April 2023 [2nd DOI:] https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202202183 

This paper is open access.

The sound of dirt

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So you don’t get your hopes up, this acoustic story doesn’t offer any accompanying audio/acoustic files, i.e., I couldn’t find the sound of dirt.

In any event, there’s still an interesting story in an April 10, 2023 news item on phys.org,

U.K. and Australian ecologists have used audio technology to record different types of sounds in the soils of a degraded and restored forest to indicate the health of ecosystems.

Non-invasive acoustic monitoring has great potential for scientists to gather long-term information on species and their abundance, says Flinders University [Australia] researcher Dr. Jake Robinson, who conducted the study while at the University of Sheffield in England.

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Photo: Pixabay

An April 8, 2023 Flinders University press release, which originated the news item, delves into the researcher’s work, Note: Links have been removed,

“Eco-acoustics can measure the health lf landscapes affected by farming, mining and deforestation but can also monitor their recovery following revegetation,” he says.  

“From earthworms and plant roots to shifting soils and other underground activity, these subtle sounds were stronger and more diverse in healthy soils – once background noise was blocked out.”   

The subterranean study used special microphones to collect almost 200 sound samples, each about three minutes long, from soil samples collected in restored and cleared forests in South Yorkshire, England. 

“Like underwater and above-ground acoustic monitoring, below-ground biodiversity monitoring using eco-acoustics has great potential,” says Flinders University co-author, Associate Professor Martin Breed. 

Since joining Flinders University, Dr Robinson has released his first book, entitled Invisible Friends (DOI: 10.53061/NZYJ2969) [emphasis mine], which covers his core research into ‘how microbes in the environment shape our lives and the world around us’. 

Now a researcher in restoration genomics at the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University, the new book examines the powerful role invisible microbes play in ecology, immunology, psychology, forensics and even architecture.  

“Instead of considering microbes the bane of our life, as we have done during the global pandemic, we should appreciate the many benefits they bring in keeping plants animals, and ourselves, alive.”  

In another new article, Dr Robinson and colleagues call for a return to ‘nature play’ for children [emphasis mine] to expose their developing immune systems to a diverse array of microbes at a young age for better long-term health outcomes. 

“Early childhood settings should optimise both outdoor and indoor environments for enhanced exposure to diverse microbiomes for social, cognitive and physiological health,” the researchers say.  

“It’s important to remember that healthy soils feed the air with these diverse microbes,” Dr Robinson adds.  

It seems Robinson has gone on a publicity blitz, academic style, for his book. There’s a May 22, 2023 essay by Robinson, Carlos Abrahams (Senior Lecturer in Environmental Biology – Director of Bioacoustics, Nottingham Trent University); and Martin Breed (Associate Professor in Biology, Flinders University) on the Conversation, Note: A link has been removed,

Nurturing a forest ecosystem back to life after it’s been logged is not always easy.

It can take a lot of hard work and careful monitoring to ensure biodiversity thrives again. But monitoring biodiversity can be costly, intrusive and resource-intensive. That’s where ecological acoustic survey methods, or “ecoacoustics”, come into play.

Indeed, the planet sings. Think of birds calling, bats echolocating, tree leaves fluttering in the breeze, frogs croaking and bush crickets stridulating. We live in a euphonious theatre of life.

Even the creatures in the soil beneath our feet emit unique vibrations as they navigate through the earth to commute, hunt, feed and mate.

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Robinson has published three papers within five months of each other, in addition to the book, which seems like heavy output to me.

First, here’s a link to and a citation for the education paper,

Optimising Early Childhood Educational Settings for Health Using Nature-Based Solutions: The Microbiome Aspect by Jake M. Robinson and Alexia Barrable. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13 (2), 211 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13020211
Published: 16 February 2023

This is an open access paper.

For these two links and citations, the articles seem to be very closely linked.,

The sound of restored soil: Measuring soil biodiversity in a forest restoration chronosequence with ecoacoustics by Jake M. Robinson, Martin F. Breed, Carlos Abrahams. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.23.525240 Posted January 23, 2023

The sound of restored soil: using ecoacoustics to measure soil biodiversity in a temperate forest restoration context by Jake M. Robinson, Martin F. Breed, Carlos Abrahams. Restoration Ecology, Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue e13934 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13934 First published: 22 May 2023

Both links lead to open access papers.

Finally, there’s the book,

Invisible Friends; How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us by Jake Robinson. Pelagic Publishing, 2022. ISBN 9781784274337 DOI: 10.53061/NZYJ2969

This you have to pay for.

For those would would like to hear something from nature, I have a May 27, 2022 posting, The sound of the mushroom. Enjoy!

Improving bacteria detection with the ‘unboil an egg’ machine

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Vortex Fluidic Device (VFD) is the technical name for the more familiarly known ‘unboil an egg machine’ and, these days, it’s being used in research to improve bacteria detection. A June 23, 2020 news item on Nanowerk announces the research (Note: A link has been removed),

The versatility of the Vortex Fluidic Device (VFD), a device that famously unboiled an egg, continues to impress, with the innovative green chemistry device created at Flinders University having more than 100 applications – including the creation of a new non-toxic fluorescent dye that detects bacteria harmful to humans.

Traditional fluorescent dyes to examine bacteria viability are toxic and suffer poor photostability – but using the VFD has enabled the preparation of a new generation of aggregation-induced emission dye (AIE) luminogens using graphene oxide (GO), thanks to collaborative research between Flinders University’s Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology and the Centre for Health Technologies, University of Technology Sydney.

Using the VFD to produce GO/AIE probes with the property of high fluorescence is without precedent – with the new GO/AIE nanoprobe having 1400% brighter high fluorescent performance than AIE luminogen alone (Materials Chemistry Frontiers, “Vortex fluidic enabling and significantly boosting light intensity of graphene oxide with aggregation induced emission luminogen”).

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A June 24, 2020 Flinders University [Australia] press release, which originated the news item, delves further into the work,

“It’s crucial to develop highly sensitive ways of detecting bacteria that pose a potential threat to humans at the early stage, so health sectors and governments can be informed promptly, to act quickly and efficiently,” says Flinders University researcher Professor Youhong Tang.

“Our GO/AIE nanoprobe will significantly enhance long-term tracking of bacteria to effectively control hospital infections, as well as developing new and more efficient antibacterial compounds.”

The VFD is a new type of chemical processing tool, capable of instigating chemical reactivity, enabling the controlled processing of materials such as mesoporous silica, and effective in protein folding under continuous flow, which is important in the pharmaceutical industry. It continues to impress researchers for its adaptability in green chemistry innovations.

“Developing such a deep understanding of bacterial viability is important to revise infection control policies and invent effective antibacterial compounds,” says lead author of the research, Dr Javad Tavakoli, a previous researcher from Professor Youhong Tang’s group, and now working at the University of Technology Sydney.

“The beauty of this research was developing a highly bright fluorescence dye based on graphene oxide, which has been well recognised as an effective fluorescence quenching material.”

The type of AIE luminogen was first developed in 2015 to enable long-term monitoring of bacterial viability, however, increasing its brightness to increase sensitivity and efficiency remained a difficult challenge. Previous attempts to produce AIE luminogen with high brightness proved very time-consuming, requires complex chemistry, and involves catalysts rendering their mass production expensive.

By comparison, the Vortex Fluidic Device allows swift and efficient processing beyond batch production and the potential for cost-effective commercialisation.

Increasing the fluorescent property of GO/AIE depends on the concentration of graphene oxide, the rotation speed of the VFD tube, and the water fraction in the compound – so preparing GO/AIE under the shear stress induced by the VFD’s high-speed rotating tube resulted in much brighter probes with significantly enhanced fluorescent intensities.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Vortex fluidic enabling and significantly boosting light intensity of graphene oxide with aggregation induced emission luminogen by Javad Tavakoli, Nikita Joseph, Clarence Chuah, Colin L. Raston and Youhong Tang. Mater. Chem. Front., [Materials Chemistry Frontiers] 2020, Advance Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0QM00270D First published: 28 May 2020

This paper is behind a paywall.

I first marveled about the VFD (unboil an egg machine) in a March 16, 2016 posting.

Nanotechnology in the house; a guide to what you already have

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A July 4, 2016 essay by Cameron Shearer of Flinders University (Australia) on The Conversation website describes how nanotechnology can be found in our homes (Note: Links have been removed),

All kitchens have a sink, most of which are fitted with a water filter. This filter removes microbes and compounds that can give water a bad taste.

Common filter materials are activated carbon and silver nanoparticles.

Activated carbon is a special kind of carbon that’s made to have a very high surface area. This is achieved by milling it down to a very small size. Its high surface area gives more room for unwanted compounds to stick to it, removing them from water.

The antimicrobial properties of silver makes it one of the most common nanomaterials today. Silver nanoparticles kill algae and bacteria by releasing silver ions (single silver atoms) that enter into the cell wall of the organisms and become toxic.

It is so effective and fashionable that silver nanoparticles are now used to coat cutlery, surfaces, fridges, door handles, pet bowls and almost anywhere else microorganisms are unwanted.

Other nanoparticles are used to prepare heat-resistant and self-cleaning surfaces, such as floors and benchtops. By applying a thin coating containing silicon dioxide or titanium dioxide nanoparticles, a surface can become water repelling, which prevents stains (similar to how scotch guard protects fabrics).

Nanoparticle films can be so thin that they can’t be seen. The materials also have very poor heat conductivity, which means they are heat resistant.

The kitchen sink (or dishwasher) is used for washing dishes with the aid of detergents. Detergents form nanoparticles called micelles.

A micelle is formed when detergent molecules self-assemble into a sphere. The centre of this sphere is chemically similar to grease, oils and fats, which are what you want to wash off. The detergent traps oils and fats within the cavity of the sphere to separate them from water and aid dish washing.

Your medicine cabinet may include nanotechnology similar to micelles, with many pharmaceuticals using liposomes.

A liposome is an extended micelle where there is an extra interior cavity within the sphere. Making liposomes from tailored molecules allows them to carry therapeutics inside; the outside of the nanoparticle can be made to target a specific area of the body.

Shearer’s essay goes on to cover the laundry, bathroom, closets, and garage. (h/t July 5, 2016 news item on phys.org)

Unboiling egg technology can cut through carbon nanotubes

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One of 2015’s big science stories, Flinders University’s ‘egg unboiler’ (also known as, a vortex fluidic device). has made the news again in a March 11, 2016 news item on phys.org,

Technology used by scientists to unboil an egg is being adapted to precisely cut through carbon nanotubes used in solar panel manufacturing and cancer treatment.

Scientists from Flinders University in South Australia have proven their Vortex Fluidic Device’s ability to slice through carbon nanotubes with great precision.

A March 11, 2016 story written by Caleb Radford for The Lead, which originated the news item, notes the advantages to using this technology for slicing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and prospects for commercialization,

Device creator and Flinders University Professor Colin Raston said the carbon nanotubes could be commercialised within 12 months.

“Importantly for this technology is that we have uniformity in products,” he said.

“It opens it up for applications in drug delivery if you can get all of the carbon nanotubes to about 100 nanometres … 100 nanometres is the ideal length for getting into tumours so you can actually functionalise them to target cancer cells.

“Uniformity in products also means that you can improve the solar cell efficiency in solar cell devices.”

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Flinders University scientists last year were awarded an Ig Nobel Award for creating the Vortex Fluidic Device and using it to unboil an egg.

The device can also be used to slice CNTs accurately to an average length of 170 nanometres using only water, a solvent and a laser.

It is also a simpler and cheaper process than previous methods, which resulted in random lengths that made it difficult to deliver drugs to patients and transfer electrons for solar panel manufacturing.

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Flinders University PhD student Kasturi Vimalanathan, who played a key role in discovering new applications for the device, said the machines ability to cut carbon nanotubes to a similar length significantly increased the efficiency of solar cells.

“They shorten the carbon nanotubes to fit in all the chemicals so it can withstand high temperatures,” she said.

“It increases the efficiency and enhances the photoelectric conversion because they can provide a shorter transportation pathway for these electrons.

“It’s a one step method we can scale up. We can see cheaper solar panels on the back of this development.”

Here’s an image of Ralston, presumably with his Vortex Fluidic Device,

Professor Colin Raston received global attention and won an Ig Nobel prize on his way to becoming one of the biggest science stories of 2015. Courtesy Flinders University, Australia

Professor Colin Raston received global attention and won an Ig Nobel prize on his way to becoming one of the biggest science stories of 2015. Courtesy Flinders University, Australia

A Dec. 18, 2015 Flinders University blog posting announced Ralston’s Ig Nobel,

When Flinders University’s Professor Colin Raston unboiled an egg earlier this year with his ‘Vortex Fluidic Device’, in a feat previously considered impossible by science, he made TV screens and front pages all over the world, generating a veritable tsunami of ‘eggscellent’ puns.

The global impact of his achievement transformed the softly spoken South Australia Premier’s Professorial Research Fellow in Clean Technology into an internationally recognised figure overnight – and culminated in him receiving a prestigious Ig Nobel prize in September [2015].

In recognition of the massive amount of attention Professor Raston’s achievement received for Australian research, it has today been hailed as one of the top ten weird and wonderful Australian science stories of 2015 by the Australian Science and Media Centre (AusSMC).

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Responding to the announcement, Professor Raston said he had been thrilled with the response to his achievement and had been ‘living the dream’ since.

“We were very interested in how the Vortex Fluidic Device might control protein folding, and the breakthrough with my collaborator at UCI, Greg Weiss, simplifies this, in a fraction of the time, minimising waste generation and energy usage. What this amounted to was unboiling an egg,” he said.

Who would have thought a device for unboiling eggs could be used to cut carbon nanotubes? Clearly, Kasturi Vimalanathan. Amazing.

For anyone interested and/or unfamiliar with the Ig Nobel prizes, there’s my Sept. 17, 2013 posting.

Windows as solar cells using carbon nanotubes from Australia

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It’s not a brand new idea (windows as solar cells) as the folks at Flinders University (Adelaide, South Australia) might have you believe but it’s the first time I can recall coming across a reference to carbon nanotubes and ‘solar cell’ windows. From the March 20, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

As part of his just-completed PhD, Dr Mark Bissett [photograph with Nanowerk news item] from the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences [Flinders University] has developed a revolutionary solar cell using carbon nanotubes.

A promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cells, carbon nanotubes are cheaper to make and more efficient to use than their energy-sapping, silicon counterparts.

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“The overall efficiency of silicon solar cells are about 10 per cent and even when they’re operating at optimal efficiency it could take eight to 15 years to make back the energy that it took to produce them in the first place because they’re produced using fossil fuels,” he said.

Dr Bissett said the new, low-cost carbon nanotubes are transparent, meaning they can be “sprayed” onto windows without blocking light, and they are also flexible so they can be weaved into a range of materials including fabric – a concept that is already being explored by advertising companies.

While the amount of power generated by solar windows would not be enough to completely offset the energy consumption of a standard office building, Dr Bissett said they still had many financial and environmental advantages.

“In a new building, or one where the windows are being replaced anyway, adding transparent solar cells to the glass would be a relatively small cost since the cost of the glass, frames and installation would be the same with or without the solar component,” Dr Bissett said.

The researchers are suggesting that this technology could be in the marketplace in 10 years.