MULTI-FUNCTIONAL POLYMER SCAFFOLDS FOR CLEANING CATALYSIS

人们有一个共同的愿望，那就是穿干净的衣服，无论他们的财富或国籍如何。目前的洗涤剂配方是一种复杂的试剂混合物，但就其清洁成分而言，可以广泛地认为含有(i)表面活性剂，以溶解织物基污渍；（ii）酶消化污渍和（iii）漂白剂来降解和增加有色污渍的亲水性。通常，这些配方需要非环境温度的水才能有效。开发冷水清洁技术具有明显的社会、经济和环境效益，例如，在发达国家，能源需求的显著减少将对用户和英国经济产生经济效益，因为它减少了与热水相关的能源账单(英国政府的统计数据表明，英国洗衣机平均每年使用270次洗涤周期，每个周期使用16升的水。加热这些水的成本（假设240万户家庭使用10 p/kWh）估计约为1.84亿美元；能源需求的减少也将减少发电过程中的温室气体排放。在较低温度下洗涤的一个重要问题是脂肪和油的凝固，通常在35℃以下以结晶形式存在，这阻碍了它们从织物上轻易去除。虽然在冷水中清洗的技术问题是多方面的，但最终，漂白催化剂和酶在这些温度下的有限性能是造成问题的主要原因。为了克服这些问题，必须解决几个技术问题。一个关键因素是在这些条件下酶和漂白剂的低效操作。虽然有几个方面需要考虑，酶与其他酶和金属基漂白催化剂的不相容性，漂白催化剂的自我破坏以及在高pH值下工作的要求（这部分是由于需要激活漂白化合物），限制了最具侵略性配方的应用和性能。该提案将侧重于开发技术，使这些目前不兼容的技术能够在更符合其有效运行的操作条件下一起应用，以防止有害的相互作用。

People share a common desire to wear clean clothes, regardless of their wealth or nationality. Current detergent formulations are a complex mixture of reagents, but in terms of their cleaning composition can broadly be considered to contain (i) surfactants to solubilise fabric-based stains; (ii) enzymes to digest stains and (iii) bleaches to degrade and increase the hydrophillicity of coloured stains. Typically, these formulations require non-ambient temperature water to be effective. There is a clear societal, economic and environmental benefit to developing cold water cleaning technology for example in the developed world the significant reduction in energy requirements will have economic benefit to users and the UK economy by reducing energy bills associated with heating water (UK government statistics suggest that the average UK washing machine is used for 270 wash cycles per year with each cycle using 16 L of water. The cost of heating that water (assuming 10 p/kWh and 2.4 M households) is estimated to be in the order of 184 million); this reduction in energy demand will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power generation. A significant problem associated with washing at lower temperatures is the solidification of fats and oils, often in crystallised forms below 35 oC, preventing their facile removal from fabrics. While the technological problems of cleaning in cold water are many-fold, ultimately it is the limited performance of the bleaching catalysts and enzymes at these temperatures that are major contributors to the problem.Several technical issues must be addressed to overcome these issues. A key element is the inefficient operation of enzymes and bleaching agents under these conditions. While there are several aspects to consider, the incompatibility of enzymes both with other enzymes and metal-based bleaching catalysts, the self-destruction of bleaching catalysts as well as the requirement to operate at high pH (that is in part driven of the need to activate bleaching compounds), limit the application and performance of the most aggressive formulations. The proposal will focus on the development of technology that enables these, currently incompatible technologies to be applied together under operating conditions that are more consistent with their efficient operation in a way that will prevent deleterious interactions.