Projects
At Danish Polymer Centre we research in extensional rheology, silicone elastomers and synthesis of polymers.
Current projects
About WeArAble
Soft wearables with high energy density: Merging chemical biology and silicone chemistry with active compliant devices.
The WeArAble center will build the scientific foundation for soft wearables with the high energy density needed to enable thin and nearly invisible prosthetics, soft exoskeletons, and haptics. Comfortable wearables today cannot generate enough force to serve their claimed function. We will solve that challenge in WeArAble.
Our cross-disciplinary center will pioneer a unique approach to soft, comfortable wearables: the integration of biologically tailored fibers into soft silicone elastomers. These soft materials will resemble soft tissue in compliance and function (sensing and actuation). By combining synthetic biology, chemical synthesis, and fiber technology, unprecedentedly high energy densities for soft materials will result. The materials will be operated electrically, enabling efficient control of complex motion. Our soft actuators embrace their inherent softness as a key advantage and enable the development of powerful wearables allowing for useful forces.
The center’s primary research activities focus on:
- Molecular design of silicone elastomers resembling soft tissue and with electro-mechanical robustness to allow for stable fibers.
- Tailoring of bacteria that enable specialized materials with, e.g., high conductivity or tissue adhesion, allowing for the integration of living materials, the silicones into fibers, and ultimately into the wearables.
- Architecture of biocompatible flexible devices that encompass ultra-soft materials while providing useful forces and yet remaining mechanically transparent to allow for versatile use on (or ultimately in) the human body.
WeArAble will generate the knowledge and innovations for a paradigm shift towards mechanically transparent (i.e., imperceptible, not hindering motion nor even the sense of touch) active wearables that benefit many segments of society (medical, sports, in,industrial and entertainment scenarios), and improve inclusion of physically impaired people.
Partners
The WeArAble center is organized around three fundamental scientific challenges, each headed by a partner. All three partners will solve their respective challenges in close collaboration with the other partners.
- Project leader: Professor Anne Ladegaard Skov, Centre Leader for the Danish Polymer Centre, DTU Kemiteknik.
The role of Professor Anne Ladegaard Skov is to lead the project, and her group is responsible for the modeling, development, and synthesis of new and advanced silicone network structures with high energy density and self-healing abilities.
Professor Anne Ladegaard Skov will be responsible for Challenge 1: Understanding how silicone polymer structure, microscopic network structure, and fiber interaction affect energy density and mechanical properties.
- Partner: Associate Professor Neel Joshi, Northeastern University, Boston, US.
The role of associate professor Neel Jordi is to provide expertise in the fields of living materials, synthetic biology, and microbial engineering. His group will focus on incorporating living cells and specialized materials derived from microbial fermentation into silicone materials or directly into devices that can be wearable, implanted, or interact meaningfully with humans in other ways.
Associate Professor Neel Joshi will be responsible for Challenge 2: Engineering of bacteria to express fibers with high conductivity, bio-adhesion, and other tailored properties.
- Partner: Professor Herbert Shea, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Neuchatel, Switzerland.
The role of professor Herbert Shea is to develop soft wearable actuators for haptics and exoskeletons, addressing open challenges using novel materials made by synthetic biology in the shape of fibers or composite materials from silicone. He will leverage his lab’s unique expertise in developing new architectures for soft electrically driven devices, and manufacturing processes and using them for on-skin haptics.
Professor Herbert Shea will be responsible for Challenge 3: Understanding the interaction of fiber and yarn structures with device design and how the design of actuators can fully embrace the properties.
About funding
WeArAble - Soft wearables with high energy density: merging chemical biology and silicone chemistry with active compliant devices is funded by Novo Nordisk Fonden grant NNF22OC0071130.
The 48 million DKK grant was funded from the Challenge Programme 2022 - Energy materials with biological applications.
The grant period starts on 01 November 2022 and will last five years.
Objective
The objective of this project is to develop a range of new biopolymer composites and to test them for different applications.
Background
Society is dependent on plastic materials in order to be able to support the growing population. If we consider the most recent projection of the world annual plastics production, it indicates that in 2050, 20% of the annual production of oil should be used for preparation of plastic materials.
This underlines the need to find alternative sources of raw materials that can be used for preparation of plastics to reduce this strain on depleting resources. This can either be done by improved recycling, by introduction of new bio-based polymers or by using biopolymers originating from natural sources.
The project
The specific project is one part of a larger DFF project, where we will apply machine learning in collaboration with CITA to develop new systems.
Funding
The project is funded by DFF and is part of a larger DFF project, which has been granted in collaboration with CITA at KADK.
The project will be running from 2020-2023.
Contact
Anders Egede Daugaard Associate Professor Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering adt@kt.dtu.dk
Contact
Arianna Rech PhD student Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering arirec@kt.dtu.dk
In the project - Circular Mono Plastic Packaging, we will contribute to development of two technologies that will enable production of flexible packaging prepared from a single plastic material to enable simpler recirculation.
About the project
See the full press announcement 'Mere af din brugte mademballage skal kunne genanvendes' on Innovation Fund Denmark website (In Danish) or read more on the project website.
The project is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark (IFD) and runs from June 2020-2023.
Partners are: Arla Foods, Teknlogisk Institut, DTU Chemical Engineering, DTU Food Nilpeter, Resino Trykfarver, Trepko, Vetaphone, Boreas, Salling Group, Dansk Affaldsforening and DI Fødevarer.
Contact
Anders Egede Daugaard Associate Professor Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering adt@kt.dtu.dk
Novel block copolymer systems for more efficient reconstitution of membrane proteins
Objective
The industrial PhD project has the overarching objective, to prepare a range of new polymer systems for reconstitution of specific proteins.
Background
Aquaporin Inside membranes for water filtration, exploits specific water channel proteins for selective transport of water through membranes. This requires the water channel protein to be stabilized inside the membrane to obtain a sufficient efficiency of the system
The project
The project is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark and will be running from 2020-2023.
Contact
Anders Egede Daugaard Associate Professor Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering adt@kt.dtu.dk
Contact
Karolis Norinkevicius Student Students s172024@student.dtu.dk