Start-up to Use APL Technology to Boost Safety of
Drinking Water
By Paulette Campbell Applied Physics
Laboratory
The Applied Physics
Laboratory has signed an agreement with MIP-Solutions,
a start-up company headquartered in Las Vegas, granting it
exclusive rights to the Lab's portfolio of molecularly
imprinted polymer technologies, a class of synthetic
polymers that may be tailored to selectively detect a
particular substance.
APL and MIPSolutions will soon begin developing the
first of many applications related to the safety of
drinking water. MIPSolutions also has secured the exclusive
rights to the technology as it relates to waste water
treatment and water-based mining operations using
filtration, treatment, reclamation and extraction
processes.
The licensed technology includes APL's approach to
molecular imprinting, a technique for preparing synthetic
polymers with recognition sites specific to a target
molecule. Similar to how a key must be complementary to a
lock in order to work, the shapes, sizes and
functionalities of these artificially generated recognition
sites are complementary to the target molecule and are
capable of rebinding target molecules in preference to
other closely related structures.
Similar complexes are made by the human immune system;
however, MIPs are more robust, stable and resistant to a
wide range of pH, humidity and temperature fluctuations
than their biological counterparts. Additionally, the
newest versions of these materials are less expensive and
safer to produce, and they can be physically and chemically
manipulated to meet and exceed the demands of the current
market.
Work with these synthetic compounds began in the 1950s
and focused on silica gels. In the early 1990s, APL began
exploring methods to incorporate MIPs into filters and
sensors to meet the requirements of different sponsors. APL
was able to demonstrate that their cutting-edge filters
were able to selectively and completely remove
predetermined chemicals and ions, outperforming existing
techniques and devices.
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2006
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