Researchers study how antibacterial properties in animals, plants can be used in medical implants
Apr 15 2021
Researchers from London South Bank University (LSBU) are leading an international project aimed at reducing bacterial infection during the surgical process of medical implants. The team of academics is working to understand how the antibacterial properties found in many animals and plants can be used in medical implants. Dragonfly wings, lotus leaves and cicada wings possess body features that can kill bacteria.
The researchers are studying surface structures using robust precision measurement systems to create efficient antibacterial surfaces by using advanced lasers and 3D computer models.
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WASHINGTON, April 6, 2021 Dragonfly wings, lotus leaves, cicada wings thanks to millennia of evolution, nature has optimized the ways these surfaces and others behave to offer antibacterial functionality.
An international, interdisciplinary team of researchers is trying to find the best way to translate these features to create nature-inspired bactericidal surfaces for use in medical implants. They discuss the surface structures and chemical compositions for an ideal implant material in the journal
Applied Physics Reviews, from AIP Publishing. Objects in nature have such unique features, like spikes sharper than a bacterium, which give them the power of disturbing and killing a bacterium, making them antibacterial, said Saurav Goel, an author from London South Bank University. We can make these features with our ultraprecision engineering instruments.
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IMAGE: In Applied Physics Reviews, researchers in China describe how they applied basic physical concepts of atomic scale to build high-performance anodes for sodium-ion batteries.
This image shows a homemade softpack sodium-ion. view more
Credit: Jiangping Tu, Yuqian Li, Liyuan Zhang, Xiuli Wang, Xinhui Xia, Dong Xie, and Changdong Gu
WASHINGTON, January 12, 2021 Sodium-ion batteries are a potential replacement for lithium batteries, but the anodes positively charged electrodes that work well for lithium-ion batteries don t provide the same level of performance for sodium-ion batteries.
Amorphous carbon, which lacks a crystalline structure, is known to be a useful anode, because it has defects and voids that can be used to store sodium ions. Nitrogen/phosphorus-doped carbon also offers appealing electrical properties.