Media Release
December 5 2006
Huge power for tiny science
UniSA wins $10 million to support state-of-the-art lab
Minerals
extraction, chemical and biochemical processing and pharmaceutical drug
production are generally carried out on large industrial sites – today, the same research can be undertaken at speeds 100 to
1000 times faster and in a space the size of a washing machine or family
living room.
And researchers at UniSA’s Ian Wark Research Institute have just won $10 million under the National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to further the development of this kind of science in SA.
The $10 million investment will fund the development of advanced state-of-the-art equipment in micro and nano fluidics and also add to The Wark’s™ capacity in nanocharacterisation (the kind of science that unlocked the cause of Phar Lap’s death).
Director of The Wark™, UniSA Laureate Professor John Ralston says the key project, a new Microfluidics Nanofabrication Facility at Mawson Lakes campus, will be unique in Australia providing sophisticated technology to help to make advances across a broad spectrum of industries from minerals and energy, to advanced manufacturing, clinical and medical sciences and pharmaceuticals.
“This is highly complex materials science, but it means we can provide vanguard solutions for industry feeding into key areas of local and international importance including our burgeoning minerals processing industries, defence technology manufacturing and health via new techniques in drug delivery and disease detection,” Prof Ralston says.
As lead institute for the $23 million Australian Mineral Science Research Institute (AMSRI), Professor Ralston says this latest infrastructure grant will further strengthen capacity at the The Wark™ to engage in research which will transform the minerals industry and result in large productivity improvements.
“The new lab will allow us to perform chemical and biochemical processing to a chip the size of a microscope slide and on an assembly of such chips,” he says. On these specially engineered chips there are narrow channels through which we can pass fluids and perform exactly the same sorts of experiments and processes you would in an industrial lab – but this work is smaller, faster, more efficient and cheaper.”
The new facility includes a state-of-the-art clean room, specialist equipment for electron beam etching, advanced coating, surface preparation lithography, thermal lens and atomic force microscopy and other evaluation.
Professor Ralston said the boost to facilities would also allow UniSA to work more closely with the University of Tokyo.
“We have already established a strong collaboration with the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering who are world pioneers in the engineering technology that produces the chips. This boost to our capacity will ensure that we can enhance the development of our joint laboratory and continue academic and postgraduate student exchanges to support joint research.”
Professor Ralston said chip based micro and nano fluidics research was now not just a concept but a way of the future.
“The capacity to compress the processing environment can reduce the industrial ‘footprint’ by a factor of 1000, at the same time speeding up the entire process,” he said.
“From our fundamental research we already have applications we can apply to industry in processes that require the separation of proteins for the biochemical industry and solvent extraction processes that feed into minerals and surface coating industries.
“The work we can do in this 21st century laboratory will contribute
to smart solutions that improve environmental outcomes, deliver drugs
more efficiently, and contribute to the evolution of future clever
products – some that we haven’t even dreamed of yet.”
Contact for interview
-
Laureate Professor John Ralston office (08) 8302 3066
Media contact
- Michèle Nardelli office (08) 8302 0966 mobile 0418 823 673 email michele.nardelli@unisa.edu.au