NSF I-Corps: Silver materials for antimicrobial coatings

NSF I-Corps：用于抗菌涂层的银材料

• 批准号: 1853675
• 负责人: Terry Bigioni
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Toledo
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-15 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1853675&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Corps; Silver; materials; antimicrobial

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to provide a new means of creating broad-spectrum antimicrobial fabric treatments with a low barrier to entry for manufacturers. This technology promises to deliver antimicrobial coatings at lower overall economic and environmental costs, by reducing solvent usage, waste, and coating loss. Antimicrobial treatments are already used in medicine, as anti-infective treatments of bandages, catheters, and other medical items, and in garments and textiles, as anti-odor treatments. The lower barrier to entry for garment manufacturers is expected to enable more widespread adoption of the technology, which in turn will reduce material and energy waste from excessive laundering and save consumers money. The technology can be adapted to a wide range of fiber types and can be applied without specialized equipment, facilitating the integration into existing manufacturing processes and giving manufacturers access to premium market segments with minimal upfront investment. This I-Corps project will help improve the market penetration of antimicrobial treatments, which in turn will provide consumers with superior garment performance at reduced environmental and economic costs. The technology uses a new form of soluble silver metal, developed by prior NSF funded research, and an innovative method to coat a variety of different fiber types with bioactive silver, which enables the antimicrobial coatings to be applied at any stage in the manufacturing process. Proof of concept has been demonstrated with basic prototyping, but development of the technology for specific markets and applications demands a better understanding of customer needs. This I-Corps team project is aimed at discovering those customer needs, through extensive customer interviews, in order to inform the development and engineering of products that meet each particular market specific need that is identified.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是为制造商提供一种低进入门槛的广谱抗菌织物处理方法的新方法。这项技术承诺通过减少溶剂的使用、浪费和涂层损失，以更低的整体经济和环境成本提供抗菌涂层。抗菌治疗已经用于医药，作为绷带、导尿管和其他医疗物品的抗感染治疗，并用于服装和纺织品，作为抗气味治疗。服装制造商的准入门槛较低，预计将使这项技术得到更广泛的采用，从而减少过度洗涤造成的材料和能源浪费，并为消费者节省资金。该技术可以适用于各种类型的光纤，无需专门的设备即可应用，有助于集成到现有的制造工艺中，并使制造商以最小的前期投资进入高端市场。I-Corps项目将有助于提高抗菌药物的市场渗透率，从而以更低的环境和经济成本为消费者提供性能优越的服装。这项技术使用了一种新型的可溶性银金属，由美国国家科学基金会先前资助的研究开发，并采用了一种创新的方法，在各种不同类型的纤维上涂上生物活性银，这使得抗菌涂层可以应用于制造过程的任何阶段。概念验证已经通过基本的原型进行了演示，但针对特定市场和应用的技术开发需要更好地了解客户需求。这个I-Corps团队项目旨在通过广泛的客户访谈来发现这些客户需求，以便为满足已确定的每个特定市场特定需求的产品的开发和工程提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。