ANTENNA - Advanced tools for predictive cleaning in a world of resource scarcity
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Chemistry
Abstract
The ANTENNA programme aims to deliver new analysis and modelling tools to provide a step-change in formulation chemistry. These new tools will provide a transformation in the mechanisms, predictive models and experimental methods that will translate consumer cleaning tasks into tomorrow's formulations. Thereby providing a means of meeting the sustainability challenges of reduced water use, reduced energy use, fewer microfibres and the use of more sustainable chemistries.
The Consumer Goods Cleaning Sector is facing four key sustainability challenges:
1) Water: In many parts of the world water is becoming a scarce resource. Globally sustainable levels of water consumption (50 L/person/day, or ~1/3 of current UK usage) require a redesign of everyday cleaning tasks.
2) Energy & Emissions: 80% of a washing machine's energy consumption arises from heating the water. The use phase of cleaning products, especially those that use hot water, provides an excellent opportunity to reduce domestic indirect Greenhouse Gas Emissions in homes.
3) Garment lifespan: recent research shows that quick and cool wash cycles are key to reducing the number of microfibers released into the environment. Sensitive cleaning can extend garment lifespan and reduce clothes waste to landfill.
4) Sustainable & efficient chemistry: reducing the environmental footprint of cleaning chemistries where today conventional materials are used in excess to compensate for water hardness, slow kinetics and non-selective modes of action.
These sustainability challenges (relevant for the UK and beyond) are set to disrupt the industry and will require transformative solutions to redesign consumer cleaning tasks, based on a mechanistic understanding of the underpinning science and engineering. They cannot be developed incrementally from current products, even when augmented with High Throughput Experimentation & Machine Learning.
These challenges require new formulations for cleaning products. However, to design these formulations is a formidable task.
i) Unfavourable interactions between formulation components is a major problem in the development of new products (e.g., incompatibilities between bleach, enzymes and complex surfactant-polymer interactions).
ii) The ability to deposit surface protection agents (e.g., soil release, anti-microbial) is often required in a wash environment that is usually optimised for cleaning and complete removal of soils from substrates.
iii) The kinetics of favourable/unfavourable transformations must be understood to introduce novel sequenced chemistry solutions with minimum environmental footprint.
The overall vision of this proposal is, therefore, to provide new "game-changing" experimental and theoretical tools to improve on the current formulation development process and tackle the sustainability challenges identified above. These tools will accelerate testing of cleaning actives, allow the effects of the chemistry to be quantified and separated from flow and mechanical agitation; and will vastly improve the speed of formulation development and screening.
The Consumer Goods Cleaning Sector is facing four key sustainability challenges:
1) Water: In many parts of the world water is becoming a scarce resource. Globally sustainable levels of water consumption (50 L/person/day, or ~1/3 of current UK usage) require a redesign of everyday cleaning tasks.
2) Energy & Emissions: 80% of a washing machine's energy consumption arises from heating the water. The use phase of cleaning products, especially those that use hot water, provides an excellent opportunity to reduce domestic indirect Greenhouse Gas Emissions in homes.
3) Garment lifespan: recent research shows that quick and cool wash cycles are key to reducing the number of microfibers released into the environment. Sensitive cleaning can extend garment lifespan and reduce clothes waste to landfill.
4) Sustainable & efficient chemistry: reducing the environmental footprint of cleaning chemistries where today conventional materials are used in excess to compensate for water hardness, slow kinetics and non-selective modes of action.
These sustainability challenges (relevant for the UK and beyond) are set to disrupt the industry and will require transformative solutions to redesign consumer cleaning tasks, based on a mechanistic understanding of the underpinning science and engineering. They cannot be developed incrementally from current products, even when augmented with High Throughput Experimentation & Machine Learning.
These challenges require new formulations for cleaning products. However, to design these formulations is a formidable task.
i) Unfavourable interactions between formulation components is a major problem in the development of new products (e.g., incompatibilities between bleach, enzymes and complex surfactant-polymer interactions).
ii) The ability to deposit surface protection agents (e.g., soil release, anti-microbial) is often required in a wash environment that is usually optimised for cleaning and complete removal of soils from substrates.
iii) The kinetics of favourable/unfavourable transformations must be understood to introduce novel sequenced chemistry solutions with minimum environmental footprint.
The overall vision of this proposal is, therefore, to provide new "game-changing" experimental and theoretical tools to improve on the current formulation development process and tackle the sustainability challenges identified above. These tools will accelerate testing of cleaning actives, allow the effects of the chemistry to be quantified and separated from flow and mechanical agitation; and will vastly improve the speed of formulation development and screening.
Publications
Donina L
(2023)
Composition and temperature effects on the solution structure of SDS/octanol/brine by SANS, NMR and microscopy.
in Soft matter
Fischer J
(2023)
Shear-induced sponge-to-lamellar transition in bicontinuous microemulsions evidenced by microfluidic-SANS.
in Journal of colloid and interface science
Hendrikse RL
(2023)
A many-body dissipative particle dynamics parametrisation scheme to study behaviour at air-water interfaces.
in Soft matter
Li J
(2024)
Computational predictions of interfacial tension, surface tension, and surfactant adsorption isotherms
in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
O'Connell R
(2023)
Breath Figure Assembly on Evaporating Polymer Solution Droplets in Levitation
in Physical Review Letters
Pellegrino L
(2022)
Phase behaviour of model triglyceride ternary blends: triolein, tripalmitin and tristearin.
in Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP
Tan A
(2022)
Tunable Structural Color with Gradient and Multiaxial Polydimethylsiloxane Wrinkling
in Advanced Optical Materials
Torquato L
(2023)
Microfluidic in-line dynamic light scattering with a commercial fibre optic system
in Lab on a Chip
| Description | To date we have been able to develop the first parts of a physical and virtual toolkit of techniques that can be used to speedup the formulation process. These methods are being used already within P&G in help to design surfactants and polymers to meet sustainability challenges to use less water and less energy in cleaning, to improve garment lifespan and to move towards greener formulations. |
| Exploitation Route | The techniques can be used for chemical screening (including virtual screening) of molecules, automation of formulation testing, detection of chemicals at surfaces. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Chemicals Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| URL | https://antenna-grant.webspace.durham.ac.uk/ |
| Description | The virtual and physical toolkits of methods developed during the grant are being used by P&G in screening of formulations. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Chemicals |
| Impact Types | Economic |
| Title | Oil-water interfacial tension screening tool |
| Description | Model and method to automatically calculate the interfacial tensions at water-oil interfaces for surfactant molecules (and different oils) just from a knowledge of chemical structure. The method has been taken up by P&G and incorporated into a web interface for screening surfactant structures. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The method is being used within P&G as part of the development of new surfactants. |
| Title | Surface tension screening tool |
| Description | Model and method to automatically calculate the reduction in surface tension at a water-air interface for surfactant molecules just from a knowledge of chemical structure. The method has been taken up by P&G and incorporated into a web interface for screening surfactant structures. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | This has already been used by P&G in a patent application. |
| Description | Irish Young Chemists Network International Women's Day Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I spoke about my career and research at an event organised by the Irish Young Chemists Network to coincide with International Women's Day, as part of a panel of four speakers across industry and academia. Presentations were followed by a Q&A session for students and postdocs to discuss career pathways and challenges. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.chemistryireland.org/young-chemists-network/ |
| Description | Levelling Up: Aspire Higher Guest Lecture |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Guest lecture for the Levelling Up: Aspire Higher programme, an academic and pastoral support programme targeted at 17-18 year old students who are aiming to pursue the study of chemistry, maths or physics at university. Lecture focussed on the challenges of developing diagnostic tools to keep pace with emerging pathogens, followed by a Q&A session. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | North-East Women in Life Sciences Network Meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The North-East Women in Life Sciences Network Meeting was held at The Core in Newcastle upon Tyne, on 9th March 2022, with presentations by women across the life sciences sector, followed by a networking and drinks reception. The meeting and was attended by 60 attendees at the Core in Newcastle, and 30 virtual attendees on Zoom. The speakers for the event included Dr Clare Mahon, Assistant Professor at Durham University, Director at Definition IP Ltd and Nicola Emmett- QA/RA manager at LightOx. Clare Mahon and Claire Rutherford delivered presentations, detailing their career journeys and job roles, before Nicola Emmett participated in an open discussion fielding questions from in-person and online audience members. Each speaker contributed their opinions-shaped by their unique career journeys- on topics such as overcoming rejection, entrepreneurship, the importance of collaboration and the benefits of taking risks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://highforceresearch.com/newils-2022/ |
| Description | RSC Women in Chemistry "A day in the life of..." event for International Women's Day 2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I participated in the RSC Women in Chemistry "A day in the life of..." event for International Women's Day 2022, a Twitter and Instagram campaign to raise awareness of diversity within the chemistry community. I shared shots of my day at work, interacting with students in the lab and in lectures, and also my family life. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On-line talk about molecular simulation methodologies |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |