A UNSW researcher has used near-infrared light to create polymers, opening new horizons for materials science and medicine.
Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer (pictured above) is deputy director of the Australian Centre for Nanomedicine. He was inspired by the bacteria which thrive in the deepest parts of the ocean during his search for more sustainable ways to produce polymers.
Polymers are small, repeating chains of molecules which make up the human body's DNA and proteins, as well as being used in industry to manufacture everything from paints and plastics to textiles and glue.
Boyer found that bacteria living in deep-sea vents where light is scarce use a specialised kind of chlorophyll to harvest near-infrared light, which is emitted from superheated waters erupting from the vents.
This led to him focusing on the near-infrared part of the spectrum. By using near-infrared, a low-energy form of light, to drive the polymerisation process, Boyer says engineering and building polymers not only becomes more efficient, but also battery controlled.
“We’ve opened a new door and shown something that was not possible before,” he said of the discovery, published in the latest edition of leading chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
Boyer and fellow researcher PhD candidate Siva Shanmugam found that near-infrared polymerisation also allowed them an exquisite degree of control over initiating and stopping the process and the length of the chains produced.
Another effect of using near-infrared to create polymers is the ability on the part of these waves to penetrate objects, including human tissue, while using a fraction of the energy. This makes it much safer for ultraviolet light for biological and medical use, especially because of the known effects that UV light has in damaging DNA, and causing cancer and mutations.
This could mean future applications where near-infrared light is used within the body to regenerate tissue or control bleeding during surgery. It might also be possible to polymerise components of implants within the body. For example, current new joint replacement cements are designed to set within moments of being applied. New joint replacement cements could be workable for longer, only setting when triggered by near-infrared light.
The next phase of research will focus on in-vitro studies using live material, with the aim of encapsulating living cells in polymeric gels.