I-Corps: Making a Stable Colloid from Small Molecules

该项目的目的是基于发现稳定的水性胶体开发产品设计。这种胶体体系的粒径约为100纳米，仅由小的简单分子组成，与目前需要添加表面活性剂、电解质或粘度调节剂的工业过程相反。胶体广泛用于医学和工业中，以生产液体产品，如药品，食品/饮料，农用化学品。该过程包括通过将疏水化合物分散在水性介质中并通过称为水溶助长剂的小两亲分子稳定它们来创建胶体系统。低分子量醇是水溶助长剂的典型实例。创建这样的系统只需要简单的混合，从而有助于显著节省原材料，设备和能源成本。到目前为止，该技术已被证明用于分散疏水性化合物，如环己烷。该提案旨在将基础研究发现和潜在的新应用联系起来，以便将这些研究转化为新产品、新工艺和新服务。这个跨学科的项目是在物理化学，分子物理学，材料科学和化学工程的交叉点。拟议的研究将丰富工程教育，弥合基础，应用和商业化之间的差距。除了预期的商业目标，包括药品，食品/饮料，农用化学品，化妆品/洗涤剂，相关的商业前景可以进一步扩展到更广泛的工业和医疗应用，如纳米封装药物输送或软物质工程。近年来，丙醇和丁醇异构体的水溶液作为一种新的清洁能源的兴趣大大增加，因为这类醇被认为是有前途的乙醇的替代品。这些醇可以通过涉及细菌的代谢工程来生产。在这些溶液中制造纳米尺寸的胶体可以使人们能够通过包裹细菌来控制代谢速率。

The purpose of this project is the development of a product design based on the discovery of stable aqueous colloids. Such a colloidal system, with a particle size of about one hundred nanometer, consists only of small simple molecules, in contrast to current industrial processes where the addition of surfactants, electrolytes, or viscosity modifiers is needed. Colloids are widely used in medicine and industry to create liquid-based products such as pharmaceuticals, food/beverages, agrochemicals. The process consists of creating a colloidal system by dispersing hydrophobic compounds in an aqueous medium and stabilizing them by small amphiphilic molecules known as hydrotropes. Low molecular weight alcohols are typical examples of hydrotropes. The creation of such a system requires only simple mixing, thus contributing to significant savings in raw materials, equipment, and energy costs. This technology, so far, has been proven for dispersing hydrophobic compounds such as cyclohexane. This proposal aims to connect fundamental research discoveries and potential novel applications, so that this research can be transformed into new products, processes, and services. This interdisciplinary project is at the intersection of physical chemistry, molecular physics, materials science, and chemical engineering. The proposed research will enrich engineering education, by bridging the gap between fundamentals, applications, and commercialization. In addition to anticipated commercial targets, which include pharmaceuticals, food/beverages, agrochemicals, cosmetics/detergents, the relevant commercial landscape can be further extended to a much broader list of industrial and medical applications, such as nano-encapsulated drug delivery or soft-matter engineering. Recently, the interest in aqueous solutions of propanol and butanol isomers, as a new clean energy source, has greatly increased because such alcohols are considered promising alternatives to ethanol. These alcohols can be produced via metabolic engineering, which involves bacteria. Making nanosize colloids in these solutions could enable one to control the rate of metabolism through encapsulation of bacteria.