Sep 28, 2015 | By Tess
The New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) has recently allotted funding to a select number of science innovation proposals through their Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge. Among the selected projects are three from the University of Canterbury (UC) in Christchurch, one of which focuses on the development and potentials of 3D printed adsorptive media.
UC researchers Simone Dimartino, Don Clucas, Conan Fee and Tim Huber
This marks the seventh Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge that the MBIE has launched, and the total funding for this year’s edition is 32.92 million NZD. The challenge seeks to encourage and support New Zealand’s physical and engineering sciences by funding, at least in part, projects geared towards developing innovative and new technologies and products. As stated on their website, “The National Science Challenges are designed to tackle the biggest science-based issues and opportunities facing New Zealand.”
The three projects selected from the University of Canterbury will receive more than $3 million in funding through this year’s MBIE Science Investment Round. Excitingly for the 3D printing world, UC Chemical and Process Engineering (CAPE) researcher Simone Dimartino’s Smart Idea project, “3D printed adsorptive media”, has received Phase 2 funding having had a successful Phase 1.
Dimartino’s project consists of using 3D printing technology to create miniscule yet perfectly ordered structures for a variety of purposes, while also developing new materials to 3D print them in. As he explains, “While most current 3D printers use plastic-based materials, we’ll be printing biological and sustainable materials.”
The potential behind this project is impressive and could mean big advancements for several scientific and medical fields. That is, the research Simone Dimartino and his team of over 30 people have worked on could impact such industries as bioseparations, pharmaceuticals, biosensors, catalysis and filtration, and tissue scaffolding for regenerative medicine.
3D printed adsorptive media entails not only developing efficient packing geometries, which had been possible through computer modelling, but also creating them physically, in the real world. Professor Conan Fee, another researcher on the project describes what this could mean, “Until now, it has been very difficult to control the size and orientation of particles within a packed vessel… Our method allows us to create very specific shapes, such as stars or pyramids, rather than just spheres, identical in size, and place them throughout the column so that only the tips of the particles touch – something not possible just by the current methods using random packing.”
Dimartino is understandably enthusiastic about receiving further funding from the MBIE’s as he says, “This really recognises the potential of our idea and the quality of the research outputs the team has generated so far…Most importantly, the renewed funding indicates the quality of the idea and the clear potential there is for commercialisation.”
Professor Conan Fee
The two other projects to receive funding from the MBIE through the challenge are called “Quantitative Benchtop NMR using Bayesian Analysis” and “Race to the Finish: Processing and Properties Optimization of self-cleaning, antimicrobial ceramic coatings for buttons, knobs, handles, and rails in hospitals.” In total, the MBIE received 157 proposals from researchers. The selected ones were handpicked by the Science Board after reviews from independent experts were conducted. The new or, in the case of Dimartino’s additive manufacturing research project, renewed contracts are set to commence on October 1, 2015.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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