RELIANCE partners from Fribourg School of Engineering and Architecture (HEIA-FR) took part in the 16. Freiburger Symposium organized by the Swiss Chemical Society, Division of Industrial and Applied Chemistry (DIAC) in Fribourg, Switzerland, 27 – 28 April 2023. They presented the progress within Work Package 2 “Synthesis of mesoporous nanoparticles with improved antimicrobial effect” with a poster entitled “Bio-based antimicrobial peptides for smart response self-disinfected surfaces”.
HEIA-FR team leads the activities related to optimizing keratin extraction from poultry feathers, which also involve a study of enzymatic methods for pure peptide fractions isolations, their characterization, and proper modification for achieving optimum boactive properties when attached to the copper doped mesopourous silica nanoparticles (Cu-SMIN).
The Freiburger Symposium is a well established platfrom for exchanging research results through posters and we are pleased that its 16th edition held under the topic “From Lab to Industrial Application – Trends/Innovation in Process Chemistry & Technology” of co-chaired by one of RELIANCE project’s key consrotium members Dr. Roger Marti, HEIA-FR. The objective of this biennial conference is to provide DIAC’s more than 300 members, chemists and chemical engineers interested in industrial chemistry, chemical production and chemical process development with opportunities for professional training and networking.
RELIANCE project aims to design and develop smart response self-disinfectant antimicrobial nanocoatings based on a new range of smart antimicrobial nanoparticles. They will consist of mesoporous silica nanoparticles with metallic copper in their structure, modified with biobased bioactive compounds.
To ensure that the antimicrobial nanocoatings developed within the RELIANCE project are sustainable for humans and the environment, to increase recycling and use of resources in a more efficient way, efforts are required from an early stage of design and manufacturing.
Fundamental to the whole effort is the topical concept of ‘Safe-and-Sustainable-by-Design‘, SSbD, which implies the design of safe chemicals and materials, minimising their emission into the environment and the use of natural resources, with the aim to reduce the negative impacts to human health and environment. It integrates circularity, climate neutrality, functionality and safety of materials, products and processes throughout the life cycle.
The European Commission has recently established a set of recommendations[1] that proposes a European framework for SSbD chemicals and materials be established for Research and Innovation activities. The EC Joint Research Center has proposed a first SSbD framework[2] that sets a common baseline for evaluating safety and sustainability – an important step to increase the protection of human health and the environment against hazardous substances. The Sustainability criteria should consider environmental, social, and economic dimensions while safety should be included in all of the dimensions.
On this framework developed by JRC for SSbD criteria implementation, a two-phase approach is recommended:
first a design phase in which a number of guiding principles are proposed to support the design of chemicals and materials,
SSbD1
Material efficiency
SSbD2
Minimize the use of hazardous chemicals/materials
SSbD3
Design for energy efficiency
SSbD4
Use renewable sources
SSbD5
Prevent and avoid hazardous emissions
SSbD6
Reduce exposure to hazardous substances
SSbD7
Design for end of life
SSbD8
Consider the whole Life Cycle
and then a stepwise hierarchical approach is proposed to address the comprehensive safety and sustainability assessment of the new designs by carrying out different analysis on chemical safety, direct toxicological or ecotoxicological impact, aspects of environmental sustainability as well as social and economic conditions.
RELIANCE is aligned with this SSbD philosophy and in the first steps of the project the SSbD guiding principles are being considered during the antimicrobial nanocoatings design phase. In this preliminary sustainability analysis special attention was paid to verify that the initial selection of materials will allow the environmental and societal acceptance of the final antimicrobial nanocoatings developed within the project.
As a second step within the RELIANCE project, a Safety and Sustainability assessment will be conducted as shown in Figure 1, from a Life Cycle Engineering perspective that sequentially applies safety (material hazard and human health), environmental, economic and social comprehensive studies:
Figure 1. Sustainability assessment by RELIANCE project (based on the JRC framework)
[2] (2022, European Commission and JRC), Caldeira, C., Farcal, R., Garmendia Aguirre, I., Mancini, L., Tosches, D., Amelio, A., Rasmussen, K., Rauscher, H., Riego Sintes, J. and Sala, S., Safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials – Framework for the definition of criteria and evaluation procedure for chemicals and materials, EUR 31100 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2022, ISBN 978-92-76-53280-4, DOI 10.2760/487955 (online)
RELIANCE was presented at LOPEC 2023 Conference that was recently held in Munich, Germany, attended by experts from 22 countries who shared their expertise in around 170 presentations. The paper-based electrochemical (bio)sensors that will be used as an analytical method in the project were presented in the session dedicated on “Challenges and use cases of large area, printed or organic electronics in biomedical applications which included all applications in biomedical and healthcare such as sensors, diagnostic devices and wearable health patches that contain significant printed and flexible elements”.
“As the world’s most important communication platform for the industry, the LOPEC Conference presented the latest state of the technology and provided valuable insights for both new users and industry insiders,” said Wolfgang Mildner, General Chair of LOPEC.
In various conference formats, companies such as BMW, Microsoft, Pirelli, Samsung, Sun Chemical and Varta presented trends and new applications in printed electronics.
“The LOPEC Conference is a great yearly event for me to bring myself up to date,” stated Dr. Edzer Huitema, Chief Technology Officer at E Ink.
Focus topics of the exhibition and conference were Smart Living and Mobility, as in the words of Mildner, “sustainability has come into even sharper focus, because printed electronics are produced in a resource-efficient manner and enable green solutions”.
Characterizing the antimicrobial activity of bioactive compounds, mesoporous additives, and obtained nanocoatings, selected and developed within Reliance project, is the overriding goal of work package 7 (WP7). These materials will be tested, considering a wide range of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, to include SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, nanotoxicological study of the nanocoating developed will be addressed, including environment and in-vivo test (inhalation). The testing activities will ensure the effectiveness of the bioactive compounds, mesoporous additives, and obtained nanocoatings as well as their safety.
The activities in WP 7 are carried out by Reliance project partners Tor Vergata University, Policlinico Militare (Italian Ministry of Defence), Centexbel, Ineris, and Tekniker. During the first six-month period, they started to design the set-up for virus and bacteria analyses using the reference methods while also adding testing of some essential oils such as Carvacrol and Eugenol.
Carvacrol and Eugenol were initially tested to evaluate their antibacterial activities towards Escherichia coli (G-) and Bacillus clausii (G+). The Minimal Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) tests were performed by the broth microdilution method. The MIC is defined as the lowest concentration of the essential oil at which the bacteria does not demonstrate visible growth. The essential oils were firstly dissolved in an equal volume of Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), then serial two-fold dilutions from 5.000%–0.002% (v/v) of the essential oils were prepared, and 200 μL of each dilution dispensed into a 48-well micro-titer plate. Each well was then inoculated with 200 μL of the bacterial suspension containing 105 CFU, and the micro-titer plate was incubated at 37 °C for 24 h. The preliminary experiments reported in Figure 1, highlighted Carvacrol MIC=0.08 % for B. clausii (Gram+) while a MIC=0.15 % is reported for Eugenol. In the case of E. coli (Gram-), Carvacrol MIC=0.04 %, and Eugenol MIC=0.08 % were observed, suggesting a higher inhibitory activity of Carvacrol vs. Eugenol for the tested bacteria.
Fig.1
Antimicrobial activity evaluation by MIC for Carvacrol (CAR) and Eugenol (EUG) on B. clausii and E. coli. Nc, negative control (no bacteria), Pc, positive control (absence of EO).
To determine the mechanism of action of the selected essential oils on different viruses, the first experiments were carried out using chikungunya virus (CHIKV). CHIKV was isolated from a clinical sample by the Scientific Department of Policlinico Militare (Italian Ministry of Defence), and propagated in Vero cells. The viral titer was determined by plaque assay. In order to determine the virucidal activity of Carvacrol and Eugenol, equal volumes (0.5 ml) of CHIKV suspension, containing 10^5 PFU/mL, and essential oils were mixed with a final concentration of 0.5%, that resulted not toxic to the cells (Figure 2).
Figure 2. Study of cytotoxic effect and DMSO effect.
The effect of the essential oil addition at different time points (1, 3, 5, 15, 30, 45 and 60 min) was evaluated. As shown in Figure 3, viral inhibition by 50% was observed starting from 1- and 3-minutes treatment with Carvacrol and Eugenol, respectively. Interestingly, the antiviral activity of the compounds increased over time, reaching a percentage of inhibition of about 100 % upon 15 min incubation.
Figure 3. CHIKV survival after treatment over time
The workshop “Materials for Biosensing & Bioimaging 2023” was organised in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid through the Institute for Advanced Research in Chemical Sciences – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (IADCHEM).
The audience included an international body of students, faculty and staff from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and other universities in Spain.
Fabiana Arduini, partner in RELIANCE project and leader of the antimicrobial characterization work activities, was invited as a speaker to share on her research activity in the electrochemical paper-based devices. The principle will be applied in RELIANCE project for evaluating the antimicrobial efficiency of the developed nanocoatings by using paper-based devices combined with a smarphone-assisted potentiostat. This method presents a high interest due to the findings that paper-based sensors can overcome the limitation of the classical miniaturized electrochemical sensors, with published articles in several high-impact factor journals, including Biosensors and Bioelectronics (IF 12.5) and invited reviews (e.g. Nanomaterials and paper-based electrochemical devices: merging strategies for fostering sustainable detection of biomarkers Journal of Materials Chemistry B 10 (44), 9021-9039, selected for cover page).
Reportedly, paper-based electrochemical (bio)sensors demonstrate an ability to overcome the limitations of the other printed electrochemical sensors in the measurement of entirely liquid samples by detecting the target analyte in the aerosol phase or solid sample, without the additional sampling system. More information on that could be found in the invited review ”Electrochemical paper-based devices: When the simple replacement of the support to print ecodesigned electrodes radically improves the features of the electrochemical devices” published in Current Opinion in Electrochemistry SI: Emerging Opinions (2022) (Arduini, F., 2022. Electrochemical paper-based devices: When the simple replacement of the support to print ecodesigned electrodes radically improves the features of the electrochemical devices. Current Opinion in Electrochemistry, p.101090).
Women in Science, Engineering and Research (WISE) workshop was organized at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. The workshop, which was the third event that KAUST organized on the theme, has the overriding goal to shed light on the women scientists, STEM researchers, science editors and communicators who are making a difference in our world and
are a true source of inspiration.
The annual workshop features talk by renowned scientists and engineers about their
personal journeys and life-changing approaches. In the previous years, KAUST was honored by the participation of several prominent scientists including Nobel Laureate Fances Arnold, while this event was joined by outstanding women in science like Carolyn Duran, Vice President, Technology Development Engineering Manager, Components Research Process Engineering, Intel and Rana Dajani,
Professor of Biology and Biotechnology at Hashemite University, Jordan. The UK-based Muslim Science Magazine praised the latter as one of the most influential women scientists in the Islamic World; and Arabian Business lists Dajani as one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Arab Women”.
The audience of the event included an international body of students, faculty and staff from
KAUST and other universities in Saudi Arabia. The workshop was also live streamed online to allow the participation of those who were not able to attend in person.
In her presentation, Prof. Fabiana Arduini, Università Di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Chimiche spoke about her experience as a woman in science in her paper-based devices research – an activity that boosted her to be listed as the world’s top 2% of most influential scientists from all areas, as reported by Stanford University.
She shared how the multitask approach she takes in life, being a researcher, a mum and a wife,
has been translated into the research activity of the electrochemical paper-based devices. Additionally, she reported on how the paper-based electrochemical sensors can be used for analyte detection on surface, the principle that will be used in the RELIANCE project.
The ECS Conference offers over the course of two and a half days all you need to stay on top of your game: International experts from all over the world will be gathering again in Nuremberg to present recent developments, to debate and to inform. No trend will escape you.
KEY REASONS TO ATTEND:
Find out about the latest research results from academia and industry.
Learn from the brightest and best in coatings technology as they present their ideas and insights.
Exchange views in numerous networking opportunities on what moves or hinders you in your daily business.
Expand your horizons by embracing a world of new ideas and new technologies.
Our partners, Prof. Dr. Rudy Koopmans, Director of the Plastics Innovation Competence Center, HEIA-FR, Roger Marti, Professor of Organic Chemistry & Process Chemistry, HEIA-FR, and team attended EMPACK exhibition last month. Part of their participation in the event included a presentation of RELIANCE and its goals, objectives, work activities and expected results to visitors and exhibitors.
“EMPACK – The Future of Packaging Technology” is the largest packaging exhibition in Switzerland, held on 25 – 26 January 2023 in Zurich, gathering more than 4500 national decision makers interested in innovative developments in the field of packaging processing machinery and packaging lines, including weighing, packaging, filling, labelling and even quality control equipment. More than 100
companies participated to exhibit their products and services, ranging from packaging materials, substrates and consumables designed to optimise protection, improve durability and reduce costs, weight and waste. The venue opens up opportunities for building connections with regional service-providers operating across the spectrum of packaging – design, development,
consulting, contract packaging, recycling, software and business services in the case of outsourcing requirements.
Get a glimpse into the atmosphere of the event in the photos below:
Last week RELIANCE consortium partners held the project’s second consortium meeting in Halle Bleue of Bluefactory, Fribourg, Switzerland.
The first day was very productive with the interesting presentations on the achieved work progress in the synthesis of mesoporous nanoparticles and microbe repelling coating formulations. The definition of nanoparticle
development specifications for each application area have been concluded. Some challenges along the way were addressed with relevant modifications and research continues towards achieving Reliance’s objectives.
The day ended with delicious social dinner immersing partners in the local culinary tastes at Cafe du Midi – one of the two restaurants in Fribourg known for serving the best fondue. Everyone enjoyed the food, ambience and conversations.
The second day was dedicated to linking science to society, environment and business as essential for scientific results’ vitality as well as market acceptance and implementation of scientific outputs. Communication and dissemination activities to maximise project’s impact were also part of the discussion.
The highlight of the day was the tour of HES-SO Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale’s facilities. The guest visitors learned that an important thing students were taught was to be cognizant of scale and the significant difference in time and organizational management when it comes to lab vs industrial planning.
Everyone enjoyed this fruitful meeting and were excited to see each other again in June.
SELF – DISINFECTANT SURFACES FOR HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENTS – NEW EU PROJECT WORKING ON INNOVATIVE HOLISTIC SOLUTION OF SMART RESPONSE ANTIMICROBIAL NANOCOATINGS
A great number of pathogenic microorganisms can survive for months on surfaces, causing the transmission of a wide range of infections, which are considered to be one OF the major single causes of death worldwide. Antibiotic resistant microbial infections alone are responsible for an estimated 110,000 LIVES LOST (OECD Health report 2016) and 1.5 billion EUR in healthcare costs and productivity losses per year.
Currently existing antimicrobial coatings raise concerns related to their antibiotic resistance, complex chemical synthesis, toxicity, non-biodegradability and extremely low sustainability in terms of product performance and environmental protection. The new Horizon Europe interdisciplinary project RELIANCE addresses the growing need for innovative antimicrobial coatings that are highly effective, safe, self-disinfecting and removing bacteria, fungi and viruses in a more efficient cost/performance ratio than the presently used petrochemical-based ones.
„Beyond the present-day possibilities of conventional chemicals, RELIANCE aims to design and develop smart response self-disinfectant antimicrobial nanocoatings with an antimicrobial action that is adjusted to the specific application. In this way, RELIANCE will contribute to having a healthier and more resilient society towards microorganisms, by mitigating the spread of infections and ensuring the health and well-being of citizens “
Miren Blanco, RELIANCE Coordinator and senior researcher at Fundación Tekniker
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