[nanoPost] Anti-bacterial PP fibres

Research Centre Italy

Anti- bacterial PP fibres

A lot of effort is put in reducing the number of different plastic species to be employed by the car industry, in this sense polypropylene and polypropylene fibres are more and more used in car interior as well as the car structure. On the other hand nanotechnologies in many cases can help in having different grades of functionalised polymers, adding just a small amount of nanoparticles and without sacrificing the material recyclability that represents an important goal for a large-scale application of these new materials in the automotive industry.

The project will focus on the development of anti- bacterial polypropylene fibres to be used in car interiors. Silver is a safe and effective broad-spectrum anti-bacterial agent used in controlling infection, by combining silver nanoparticles and polypropylene it will possible to produce an organic-inorganic fibre with a wide range of possible applications that could be used in anything from carpets to any other application in car interiors.

Polymer based solar cells

Polymer based solar cells are growing in interest in the last years since their great potential due to their possible flexibility and lightweight and not least the possibility to make them transparent, that make them easily adaptable for a wide range of industrial applications, including the automotive industry. Unfortunately, from the technological point of view, effort is still needed to bring the efficiency and the reliability of the polymer-based solar cells to the same level of the silicon based cells. The project would focus to the development of new multifunctional materials with improved electro-optical performances thanks to the use of carbon nanotubes and nanoparticles. The new materials would be used to develop solar cells that could be easily integrated in the car structure to have active surfaces that could react as sensors as well as small sources of electrical power.