What is it about?
Poly(acrylamide) is a polymer that can dissolve in water, and is used in many soaps and other industrial processes. We have made a sensor that can tell us how much is dissolved In water at very, very low concentrations, by sticking it to another polymer, then determining how much that second polymer slows its rotation (in solution everything spins, moves, vibrates, etc via diffusion). This looks like a really accurate sensor for even 1 mg in a litre of water concentrations.
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Why is it important?
Poly(acrylamide) is used in many industrial processes and leaks have been toxic to the environment - it can hurt fish, plants, algae, etc. Developing this sensor means we can now accurately determine its presence at really, really low concentrations and we have learnt a lot about polymer- interactions developing this technique.
Perspectives
This work was the main focus of my PhD, sponsored by SNF (UK) Ltd (a floccculant manufacturer who wanted to know if their material was escaping into the water stream). Although it was my second accepted publication it was submitted first. It is a very neat, self contained study that developed a technique we would refer back to repeatedly in future studies.
Dr Thomas Swift
University of Bradford
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Poly(acrylic acid) interpolymer complexation: use of a fluorescence time resolved anisotropy as a poly(acrylamide) probe, RSC Advances, January 2014, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c4ra07263d.
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