Tumor ablation is an effective treatment for cancer removal, but current methods can be improved using biocompatible materials to minimize complications and post-operative pain. The procedure uses a needle-like probe to burn or freeze cancerous target tissue. An essential component to this procedure is separating healthy tissue from the target tissue to prevent damage. Current methods use saline or carbon dioxide, which cause complications within the body cavity due to gravity. The development of a biocompatible foam through partnership between UW- Eau Claire and Mayo Clinic Health System allows for thermal insulation and maintained contact with the target tissue. FDA approved biocompatible materials are used to create foam that is stable throughout the procedure. Current project goals include continuing characterization of foam properties through rheology, measuring surface tension through pendent drop tensiometry, and developing freeze drying and an automated procedural device for long-term storage and clinical adoption. Quantifying foam properties through these characterization techniques and data collection allows for clinical readiness. Refinement of the biocompatible foam aims to optimize the tumor ablation procedure, resulting in minimized complications and enhanced patient outcomes.
Growing awareness of hazardous chemicals in consumer textiles has intensified concerns regarding their effects on human health, environmental sustainability, and barriers to textile upcycling and recycling. These chemicals originate from manufacturing, finishing treatments, or plasticizers and adhesives used in graphics, where they can persist in fabrics and bioaccumulate over time. Recent conservation and risk assessments found that these contaminants pose a threat to human health and prevent large-scale textile reclamation. This research investigates supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) as a sustainable, solvent-free method for removing hazardous chemicals from textiles. With high diffusivity and complete solvent recovery without generating liquid waste, scCO2 offers a promising alternative to conventional extraction techniques. This study focuses on removing three high-priority contaminants: formaldehyde, di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), and bisphenol A (BPA) from textiles. Removal efficiency was evaluated across varying concentrations, reaction times, and co-solvent conditions. Gravimetric analysis, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were used to assess mass loss, concentration changes, and chemical signatures in extract. Results show that scCO2 can significantly reduce formaldehyde levels without damaging fabric appearance or producing solvent waste. By identifying effective processing parameters and demonstrating environmental benefits, this research supports efforts to create methods for reclaiming contaminated textiles and more sustainable use.
Architectural coatings, defined as paints and surface finishes used primarily on buildings for protection and aesthetics, require uniform pigment dispersion to achieve proper opacity, durability, and application performance. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is the primary white pigment used in these coatings due to its high refractive index, allowing it to efficiently scatter light. However, TiO2 particles frequently agglomerate in waterborne paint systems, reducing optical efficiency which increases the amount of pigment required. Because TiO2 is one of the most expensive components within paint formulation, improving its dispersion is both economically and environmentally significant. This research explores the use of stimuli-responsive block copolymers as the dispersing agents for TiO2. These polymers consist of chemically distinct segments that change their conformation in response to external stimuli, allowing them to improve pigment separation and interparticle stabilization. Dispersion quality is evaluated using Leneta charts to assess opacity and film uniformity, along with secondary tests including water droplet resistance. Rheological testing using the rheometer is also performed to generate demand curves, which describe how paint viscosity changes under applied shear and are helpful for predicting processability and behavior of paints. Successful implementation is expected to reduce TiO2 usage while maintaining performance and reducing the overall cost.
Rare-earth-based copper oxide (REBCO) is a superconducting material capable of carrying large amounts of electricity with no resistance, with applications in devices such as fusion reactors, particle accelerators, and other magnetic field applications. Our purpose in this study is to investigate the degradation of REBCO tape under cyclic loading conditions similar to those encountered in real-world magnetic applications. Fatigue measurements of REBCO tape have shown that the tape can withstand 10000 cycles with 580 Mpa for a specific manufacturer. To test these loading parameters, an Instron tensile tester was used, with copper pieces placed on the upper and lower jaws to sandwich the REBCO samples and reduce the localized axial load from the jaws. Ten thousand cycles per sample were performed on each REBCO sample with a specified maximum and minimum load; thereafter, the samples were etched and imaged with a scanning electron microscope to assess the integrity of the REBCO layers. These results will aid to identify potential fatigue-related failures of REBCO tape and validate their reliability in cyclic loading conditions.
Composite Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8-x (Bi-2212) wire has great potential as a material for high temperature superconducting magnets, due to its ability to conduct electricity without resistance. However, during heat treatment, individual Bi-2212 filaments may agglomerate or bridge, compromising wire performance. Traditional image analysis methods struggle to quantify this agglomeration because of the wide variability in filament bridging behavior—from light to fully conjoined. In this project, we apply and compare two semantic segmentation models, U-Net and SACNet, for their ability to segment and classify filaments in transverse cross-sectional images of Bi-2212 wires. Our preliminary results show that our overall pixel accuracy is about 95% while the individual filament accuracy is about 73%. The SACNet has also been adapted to operate on the UWEC BOSE supercomputing cluster, which allows higher throughput testing at a rate approximately 19 times faster than on a standard computer operating system. The process of training the model is simple and only requires editing hyperparameters within a text document. The hyperparameters are currently being assessed for their impact on the overall accuracy of the model. We hope to turn the Python-based code into a standalone software product that can be easily used by researchers without a coding background. This should allow the software to be used widely and further our understanding of the role of bridging in the performance of the wire.
Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8-x (Bi-2212) is a superconductor capable of producing large magnetic fields for advanced magnet systems. However, fluctuations in the size and shape of Bi-2212 filaments in a composite wire can affect processing capability. In this work, we compare the geometric filament uniformity of green-state densified composite Bi-2212/Ag wires to that of bronze route and powder-in-tube Nb3Sn wires in both the longitudinal and transverse orientations and explore the benefits and limitations of this technique. Filament size is the most important parameter to achieve overall uniform filaments, and transverse uniformity (which is much easier to measure) is an acceptable substitute for longitudinal uniformity in most situations. Finally, across a wide cross-section of Bi-2212 wires, the wire JE is shown to be only loosely correlated to the wire uniformity, as measured by the longitudinal coefficient of variation of the filament area. This points to the importance of powder quality and heat treatments as the primary drivers in Bi-2212 wire performance.
Previous work demonstrated the production of poly(caprolactone)-diacrylate (PCL-DA) films with unique shape memory properties using UV-curing with dichloromethane (DCM) solvent. However, in 2024 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed new regulations on DCM usage leading to strict inhalation limitations (
Menstrual cups have gained popularity with several brands and technoeconomic analyses suggesting use for up to 10 years. However, there is a lack of long-term biostability data for menstrual cups in current literature. In this work, we subjected medical-grade and food-grade silicone samples to a 1 M hydrochloric (HCl) acidic solution to determine whether environmental pH influences degradation behavior. Our findings demonstrate that food grade silicone is more susceptible to hydrolytic degradation (8.94 ± 0.41% mass loss) than medical grade silicone (0.15 ± 0.20% mass loss). Medical grade silicone also showed some mass loss, albeit a very small amount (0.69 ± 0.07%), after ten months in a vaginal fluid simulant. In follow-up studies, food grade silicone was immersed in 1M HCl and 1 M sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for 28 days to compare degradation under chemically accelerated conditions. Gravimetric analysis revealed significantly greater mass loss under acidic conditions (maximum 8.06 ± 0.97%) compared to basic conditions (maximum 2.76 ± 0.20%). These results validate earlier accelerated degradation testing and indicate that silicone is more susceptible to acid-catalyzed hydrolysis. Future studies will expand this workflow to better emulate real world menstrual cup use by using commercially available devices.
Poly(caprolactone)-diacrylate (PCL-DA) has been used previously to prepare scaffolds for tissue engineering but is limited to bone tissue due to its relatively high modulus, owing to its semi-crystalline structure. A derivative of PCL, poly(4-methylcaprolactone) (P4MCL) has been used to prepare elastomeric materials that could potentially be used in a variety of soft tissue applications; however, its high production cost restricts widespread use. Herein, we prepared a 90:10 (by mol) copolymer of PCL and P4MCL by ring opening transesterification polymerization (ROTEP) targeting a number-average molar mass (Mn = 10 kg/mol), as confirmed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy. The resultant copolymer was end functionalized to yield photocrosslinkable PCL90-co-P4MCL10-diacrylate (PCL90-co-P4MCL10-DA), and films were prepared by UV-curing with 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophene (DMPA) as the photoinitiator. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results show that this minimal incorporation of 10% by mol. P4MCL significantly reduces PCL semi-crystallinity, particularly in the UV-crosslinked films. Ongoing work will evaluate mechanical properties, hydrolytic degradation behavior, and cytocompatibility. This approach demonstrates a cost-effective copolymer design strategy to tune the thermal and mechanical properties of degradable polyester networks, potentially broadening the applicability of PCL-based scaffolds in tissue engineering.
