Ultrasonic Cleaning Systems
NBIC’s Open Innovation Hub for Antimicrobial Surfaces at the University of Liverpool and iiCON: Infection Innovation Consortium and have been working in collaboration with Alphasonics, an ultrasonic cleaning specialist, to assess the effectiveness of its advanced cleaning systems.
Founded in 1993, Alphasonics designs and manufactures patented ultrasonic cleaning systems for a variety of purposes including in the surgical, print, aerospace and electronics sectors. Alphasonics’ propriety systems utilise cavitation, the application of sound into water, to achieve a high standard of cleanliness. One of the main applications for this technology is to clean surgical instruments. Alphasonics previously used protein analysis to measure the efficacy of this approach. However, a method was required that would visually demonstrate the results and confirm the in-house protein analysis.
To achieve this NBIC Interdisciplinary Research Fellow, Dr Peng Bao, at NBIC’s Open Innovation Hub for Antimicrobial Surfaces, obtained high magnification images using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to investigate the efficacy of Alphasonics’ procedure for removal of protein coatings. In addition, Energy X-Ray Analysis (EDX) was used to identify the elemental composition of observed defects or artefacts on the surface.
David Jones, Managing Director at Alphasonics said,
“This support has been invaluable to an SME such as Alphasonics, as scientific research at this level can be limited for small businesses due to financial or resource constraints.”
Professor Rasmita Raval, NBIC Liverpool Co-Director and Director of the Open Innovation Hub for Antimicrobial Surfaces said,
“This project demonstrates how advanced research techniques can help our innovative regional companies to assess and develop technologies for surface sterilisation and hygiene. We look forward to working with other Merseyside SMEs, helping them take their product analysis to the next level with advanced surface testing technologies.”
Dr Lisa Baldwin, iiCON’s Senior Business Development Manager said,
“Contamination is a critical issue in any healthcare environment and with medical equipment, procedures and facilities becoming ever more complex and multi-faceted it’s essential to have specialists such as Alphasonics working to minimise contamination risks.”
This project was part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programme: Formulated Materials for Infectious Disease Prevention.