Big plans for microscopic fibres
(NZ Herald) Nick Smith
Tuesday Aug 16, 2011

From clean air to cosmetics, Auckland firm sees huge potential in nano-fibres.

When bottled water first hit shop shelves in a big way, many Kiwis were sceptical. Why pay $3 when it's free out of the tap? But people do pay for water and today it is a huge industry.

"People care about what goes in their bodies," says Iain Hosie, technical director at Revolution Fibres, an Auckland company keen to exploit people's concern about the environment in which they work and live by making air filters specifically designed for home and office use.

"People are now beginning to question the air that we breathe," Hosie says. "Indoor air quality is a major environmental concern, particularly overseas - and New Zealanders are waking up to that as well.

"It's fair enough you're sceptical about why you need a good air filter," he replies, when asked about public demand for such a product. "Many people don't understand that the so-called fresh air they breathe [contains] a lot of particles and dust and pollen and spores."

It's not just homes and offices; quality air-filtration technology can be applied to cars, planes and other public transport.

"It's an emerging market," Hosie concedes, "but there's a lot of data that [shows] air filtration and personal air filtration like face masks are on a steady climb."

The ability to spot emerging market trends is one sign of a good company, but what makes Revolution Fibres' prospects particularly exciting is its use of innovative electro-spinning technology to create nano-fibre (the basis of the filters) from a variety of materials, including collagen extracted from hoki fish skin, a by-product of the catch.

The technology to extract marine collagen was developed by Crown research institute Plant and Food Research, but "we've taken a sound technology that was sort of going nowhere and turned it into an air filter".

Creating nano-fibres by electro-spinning works like this: "You form a droplet out of a solution and you apply a high charge, up to 50,000 volts, causing a fibre to leap from the droplet and hit a charged substrate, a target for the fibre to land on," says Hosie.

This process forms non-woven mats of collagen fibre, which have a range of applications far beyond air filters.

"We're near completion of a range of cosmetics in which the collagen is actually a fibre that applies plant extracts to the skin," Hosie says.

Hoki, a deep-water fish, produces a particular type of collagen that is well-suited to creating fibre.

Extracting collagen from pigs and beef is harder and requires solvents, whereas "we barely use anything more [powerful] than vinegar", Hosie says.

Collagen is the major building block of skin and there is already a big market for it, whether injected, ingested or applied in cosmetics. "[Nano-fibre mats] are a really good carrier for natural antibacterial agents, skin-whitening agents and the like," says Hosie. "Skin whitening means a lot, especially to the Asian community."

Revolution Fibres has teamed up with a Blenheim company, New Zealand Extracts (which supplies plant extracts for the supplements and cosmetics market), to create a collagen fibre containing a clinical dose of extract that dissolves directly on to the skin.

Hosie claims the creation outperforms beauty creams. "The beauty is that 95 per cent of ingredients in a cream is actually the cream and what you really want is collagen and plant extracts. We've distilled cream down to its bare active ingredients. [Women] love it; we've had some fantastic responses.

"We don't want to be an air-filtration company or a cosmetics company.

"We want to produce fibre and someone else in the market can take our product further."

The electro-spinning technology, developed in-house with funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, provides the company with a global competitive advantage. "What makes it unique is that we have a lot of flexibility in our machine design and we can control all the different parameters required for electro-spinning different polymers."

That means Revolution Fibres can spin collagen, cellulose or more conventional polymers such as nylon. Hosie's research shows, despite global interest in electro-spinning, "there's not a lot of machinery that can actually produce the quantities needed for these applications. We saw a lot of researchers whose fascinating work could go nowhere because there was no cost-effective way of up-scaling their ideas."

The market for the end-product of electro-spinning - nano-fibre - is growing quickly and is estimated to be worth US$2.2 billion ($2.66 billion) by 2014.

The potential is huge, but Hosie is adamant the company is not getting ahead of itself. Its filters have been on the New Zealand market only since April; the cosmetics range is not yet available. Revolution Fibres will concentrate on getting those products to the global market before turning its attention to other uses for its electro-spun fish-skin collagen nano-fibre.

Fish skin nano-fibres power Revolution

Not that many companies claim they can turn a kilo of collagen from discarded hoki skins into a fibre that could reach all the way to the Sun. Auckland-based nano-technology start-up company Revolution Fibre does. Using an improved version of a laboratory model made by government science agency Plant & Food and a $456,000 TechNZ investment grant, the firm is building a commercial-scale electro-spinning machine that can do just that. The extremely fine nano-fibres are up to 500 times thinner than a human hair and initial applications are expected in clothing, filtration, reinforcing, electronics and packaging.

The fibres are extremely strong due to the molecular alignment of the polymer particles. Revolution Fibre's first commercial product will be air filter mats for New Zealand ventilation company, HRV. The biodegradable mats are created by diffusing the nano-fibres onto a plate made from reformed potato starch. "It is a good use of something that would normally be chucked away," says Revolution Fibre technical director, Iain Hosie. "What is good about biomaterials is it means you stay away from plastic and petrochemical-derived products." Hosie says the world is on the cusp of a boom in electro-spinning, a technology that's 150 years old. "There's been a lot of research, not a lot of commercialisation," he says.

Air filtration mats of nano-fibres provide a much greater surface area to capture pathogens and dust particles, while having less impact on airflow than other mat-fibre types. As well as conventional mechanical trapping technology of existing air filters, the new mats utilise the enhanced entrapment properties from van der Waals forces due to the fibres being so small. The same attraction forces enable a gecko to stay attached to any surface it chooses to climb.

Revolution Fibres are also going one step further. Instead of providing microbial protection by incorporating nano-silver particles, they're using manuka and other plant-based extracts to neutralise pathogens. The 18 month-old private company is initially looking to improve its production capability, while supplying the opportunity that HRV air filters requires. "We're being very careful that we don't over-promise, but find the right markets and keep up with what we promise," Hosie said. "We're also looking for the right commercial partner that's willing to grow with us."

Hosie said working with the Plant & Food Crown Research Institute has been an eye-opener. "There's any amount of innovation and commercial potential within it, but not enough's being picked up. "TechNZ funding has seen this firm grow from an idea to what could be a large export organisation in a fast-growing emerging market," said Richard Bentley, general manager manufacturing and high-growth firms at the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. Revolution Fibres has received more than $844,000 in TechNZ funding to date. The value of the global nano-fibre market is estimated at US$102 million ($138 million) and is expected to grow to $US$2.2 billion by 2020.

(www.stuff.co.nz) - Peter Kerr 04/08/2010

NZ Company Creates Revolutionary Nanofibers from Fish Skins

A New Zealand company is taking a major leap forward in commercializing nanotechnology — Revolution Fibres Ltd plans on making nano-fabrics from the collagen in discarded fish skins. (New Zealand is an island nation, after all.) The uber-thin fibers are exceptionally strong and provide extra filtration capabilities due to their nano-properties, and Revolution plans to use them in everything from clothing to filtration systems, structural reinforcement, electronics, and packaging.

The company is using a TechNZ investment grant to build a commercial-scale nano-loom to create the fabrics. Its first product will be a new type of biodegradable air filter mat for the Kiwi ventilation company HRV.

The company’s technical director, Iain Hosie, says, “It is a good use of something that would normally be chucked away. What is good about biomaterials is it means you stay away from plastic and petrochemical-derived products.”

Avoiding petro-plastics is a good thing, but the environmental cost-benefit analysis on nanotechnology is far from complete. The tiny particles and fibers — a billionth of a meter wide — can penetrate human cells and could potentially create entirely new issues for water filtration.

(www.inhabitat.com) - Cameron Scott 08/05/10