Dr Simon Collinson

While there has been considerable effort in developing processes and materials to make plastics recyclable and reusable, some plastics and polymeric materials remain difficult to recycle and typically end up in landfill. These materials are usually based on hard polystyrenes, epoxy resins and acrylates which are attractive to industries which require hard-wearing products, such as road marking and coatings. Furthermore, many of the current methods to make plastics recyclable or decomposable diminish their mechanical properties such as hardness and durability required for surface coatings. We have been piloting some approaches for polystyrene road studs to address this issue. These are temporary studs glued to the road to provide lane guidance during roadworks. They are currently deposited in landfill after a single use. The pilot approach used a range of surfactants and varying critical micelle concentrations to determine the optimum conditions (composition of surfactant, temperature, and time) to remove the adhesive that bonds the studs to the road. The recovered polystyrene studs will be ground and remolded and their mechanical and physical properties (e.g. hardness, hydrophobicity, glass and melting temperatures) examined and compared with newly manufactured studs. A second approach is based on current thermoplastics technologies using resins such as renewable rosin esters. These are interesting as the ester functionality is a point where additional functionality can be attached. The aim is to improve the wet weather performance of the material allowing it to be laid in wet conditions (so extending operation throughout the year), as well as lowering its application temperature from 250 °C. Other examples of additional desirable functionality are light emitting chromophores that improve the visibility of the markings in adverse conditions. The contribution to the material properties from these functionalities will be analysed using techniques such as Raman, SEM/TEM, adhesion, XRD, DSC and hardness testing. The final approach focuses on synthetic polymer chemistry and builds on pilot work we have done in preparing polymers with chemically cleavable bonds. This allows a polymer to be decomposed or decured and potentially makes it easier to remove and recover from the environment. Acrylates are increasingly being used as alternatives to thermoplastics in the road marking industry and this work will use light induced processes such as Photoinduced Electron Transfer (PET) to control the polymerisation of acrylates. This will build on the synthetic chemistry skills developed in the work with rosin esters above as well as the characterization techniques such as NMR and Fluorescence spectroscopy.

This is for a two year extension to AMS 1736773

Within the chemical laboratory, plastic items are widely used as they provide cheap and convenient options but in recent years the environmental cost of using single-use plastics in labs has been highlighted and so we aim to analyse their reuse. Although plastic items are renowned for their durability, it is known that exposure to UV, abrasion and chemical agents can damage the surface of plastics. Consequently, there is a need to evaluate how single-use plastics may be cleaned and recycled in the laboratory in connection with any deterioration in their properties with each use-cleaning cycle

This is a fund to give student Chris Foster up to 6 months extra stipend. Extension to AMS record 1209322.

Literature review and summary report of the use of chars (both from mixed and plant-based feedstocks) in construction material. We are most interested in concrete but asphalt is an alternative. The point of the review is to produce a document that summarises the existing research and its conclusions providing reassurance for companies that they should trial our mixed waste char. The summary should thus focus on the mechanical properties of the end product and provide as much detail regarding the attributes of the char that was instrumental in those properties. Any additional information on leaching and dangers of heavy metals and PAHs within the end product is also required.

This PhD project is an AHRC funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership between the V&A and the OU. This interdisciplinary project between the Open University and the V&A Museum aims to examine how conservators and curators make decisions about cleaning museum textiles, and the effect of conventional wet-cleaning on museum textiles. In doing so it aims to enhance museum conservation and curatorial practices as well as to develop improved cleaning processes for museum textiles. This research thus has excellent potential to development innovative practical and inexpensive cleaning techniques as well as improved decision-making strategies that can be adopted by the textile conservation profession, within and beyond the UK.

This project will produce surfactants based on mannitol which itself is derived from waste biomass arising from the production of celery. The global surfactants market is expected to reach $64,408 million by 2025 according to Allied Market Research. Surfactants are ubiquitous compounds in many cosmetics, foods and drugs. With growing environmental awareness there is a need to develop surfactants from renewable resources that at end of life will biodegrade in the environment. Similarly there is a large market for surfactants that are safe for human use and consumption. It is noteworthy that in 2017 the UK produced 53 thousand tonnes of celery (UK Horticulture Statistics 2017) and separately it has been estimated that 45% of a celery crop goes to waste providing a feedstock here. In the future other agricultural waste streams could be studied using a similar process as described here.

Traditionally the curing of meats such as sausages employed the addition of inorganic nitrites. Nitrite exhibits strong antimicrobial and antioxidant effects and generates a cured meat colour. Unfortunately nitrite can react with secondary or tertiary amines in meat to form N-nitroso compounds which may produce undesirable carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic activity. Recently it has been suggested that high consumption of processed meat may increase the risk of cancer, and that dietary nitrosamines are positively associated with cancer. Natural celery juice powder may be used for curing however this requires a high dosage due to the slow conversion of nitrates to nitrite. Consequently in this project the aim is to study the application of dried micronised celery waste in meat curing applications.

Simon Collinson (Life Health & Chemical Sciences, Open University) and Nick Chatterton (Life Health & Chemical Sciences, Open University), with external collaborators at Newcastle University, Biopower Technologies Ltd, and Marks and Spencer plc A total of ca. £24K funding has been secured to support a 4 month project on the formulation and testing of crop by-product nanomaterials which incorporate anti-microbial bioactive compounds for potential usage in food grade materials and extension of their shelf-life. The work will involve electrospinning of mechanically processed crop by-products blended with other biodegradable natural polymers such as alginic acid or chitosan. The porosity of these materials will be further optimized by chemical or enzymatic processes, followed by studies on the encapsulation and controlled release of the bioactives. The anti-microbial and antioxidant activity of the bioactive-loaded nanomaterials will also be assessed. As well as the food industry, the materials are envisaged for potential use in the personal care products, pharmaceuticals and surface coatings.

This project will apply enzymes catalysts (such as lipase), either freely in solution or when supported on the biopolymer chitosan, in the hydrolysis of polyester wastes in cost-effective and efficient processes. By supporting the lipase it will both increase its stability and enable it's recycling. This proposal explored as a support for the enzyme chitosan, which is derived from a waste product from the shell fish processing industry. To put this into context the UK shellfish processing sector has a major waste disposal problem as waste from calcareous shellfish is around 75,000 tonnes per year. For comparison we also studied the role of simple metal salts in this hydrolysis process, for example sodium hydroxide or zinc acetate. The project focused on the polyesters polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polylactic acid (PLA).

This is a pilot research project for an undergraduate student. The project builds on my previous research functionalizing the carbohydrates starch and chitosan to produce new functional materials. This project will support proteases on chitosan to produce recyclable and stable catalysts for the hydrolysis of protein wastes to more valuable hydrolysates. WRAP has estimated waste in the food and drinks supply chain (WRAP 01 312 PAD102-308) reporting that ‘about 2.25 million tonnes of material are rendered each year to produce around 500,000 tonnes of protein meal.’ This example represents an important biorefinery resource for valuable proteins, peptides and amino acids. Protein containing wastes arise from several food industries and the focus here will be from cheese production (whey protein), connective tissue (the protein collagen which yields gelatin), and eggs (ovalbumin). The hydrolysates from waste proteins often display improved antioxidant properties compared to the protein and this will be also studied.

This was to fund an undergraduate student, Kirsten Hawkins, who has approached the department for a summer placement.New approaches that localise radiosensitivity within tumours have the potential to improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy and reduce side effects for patients. Here we developed compounds, known as radiosensitisers, containing heavier elements such as metals that produce electrons upon radiotherapy. These electrons promote localised DNA damage in cancer cells leading to their death. Careful design of the complexes aimed to promote their localisation in the DNA of cancer cells so that those that these are most damaged upon radiotherapy. It is significant that we developed one copper containing compound that exhibited a comparatively low cytotoxicity in HEK293T cells (human embryonic kidney cells) over 24 h, for example it was approximately 45 times less cytotoxic to these cells in comparison to the anticancer drug cis-platin. This suggests its further study in targeted radiotherapy where the cytotoxicity in cancer cells would be turned on by the application of the radiotherapy. It is significant that we developed one copper containing compound that exhibited a comparatively low cytotoxicity in HEK293T cells (human embryonic kidney cells) over 24 h, for example it was approximately 45 times less cytotoxic to these cells in comparison to the anticancer drug cis-platin. This suggests its further study in targeted radiotherapy where the cytotoxicity in cancer cells would be turned on by the application of the radiotherapy. Abi Barbour, an A-S level student, also worked on this project under the Nuffield Research Placement scheme and as a result achieved her Gold Crest award.

This MSc project was supported by Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) and Defra. Globally the food industry produces more than 2.25 million tons of food wastes every year, representing a valuable resource for proteins, peptides and amino acids. Protein rich wastes arise from several industries including the retail of products from fish (fish meal, WRAP Project code:RSC009-001 & RSC009-003), poultry (feathers) and eggs (egg shell membrane). These proteins can be extracted to yield mixtures of valuable chemicals that for instance display antioxidant properties. This project studied ‘upcycling’ food waste into high-value chemicals using novel catalysts of zinc or nickel complexes supported on the biopolymer chitosan or the synthetic ion exchange resin Dowex M4195. These novel heterogeneous catalysts catalysed the mild hydrolysis of proteins from food waste and could be easily recovered and reused. In several cases these hydrolysis reactions successfully produced protein hydrolysates with better antioxidant activities than the initial proteins. Additionally an economic assessment was made of the cost of the catalysts against the value of the hydrolysed peptides produced. This pilot project involved Marc Berger (MSc student), Simon Collinson (at the OU), Raffaella Villa (Cranfield University) and Nick Turner (at the OU).