THE FP7 SONO PROJECT CEDRAT TECHNOLOGIES SONICATOR A NEW 3M-LONG ULTRASONIC REACTOR A PILOT LINE OF ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTIFUNGAL MEDICAL TEXTILES BASED ON A SONOCHEMICAL PROCESS PROJECT OBJECTIVE Hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections are a major financial issue in the European healthcare system. The financial impact of these infections counteract medical advances and expensive medical treatments by increasing the length of hospital stay by at least 8 days on average per affected patient, hence adding more than 10 million patient days in hospitals in Europe per year. An active infection control program of patients and personnel and hygiene measures, have proven to significantly reduce both the number of infections and the hospitalization costs. The SONO project coordinated by Prof. Aharon Gedanken , BarIlan University http://www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php directly addresses the above problems by developing a pilot line for the production of medical antibacterial textiles. During the project a pilot line has been developed for the production of medical antibacterial textiles (Fig 1). The pilot line is based on the scale-up of a test bench developed and patented by BIU laboratories. The process uses a sonochemical technique to produce and deposit inorganic, antimicrobial nanoparticles on medical textiles, e.g. hospital sheets, medical coats and bandages. Sonicators are used industrially for light and heavy duty cleaning, for water disinfection and for sewage treatment. The concept has already been proven (and patented) on a lab scale where sonochemistry was applied to impregnate nanoparticles in a single-step process. ■■ Fig1: Experimental pilot line for 500 mm textile width Copyright © CEDRAT TECHNOLOGIES | Presentation - 02/2014 CEDRAT TECHNOLOGIES CONTRIBUTION For this project Cedrat Technologies is in charge of the Sonicator development (Fig 1), which includes several transducers (Fig 2). To perform such development, Cedrat Technologies will use: - The knowledge on electro acoustic modeling and lab capabilities in the field of innovative sonic or ultrasonic transducers - The experience in their applications in new processes deriving from ultrasonic cleaning, mixing, homogenizing and ultrasonic reactors. An industrialization of the process is last part of the project. Its aim is to scale-up the pilot line in order to be able to use a sonochemical impregnation process for a wilder range of textiles. Therefore, an optimal transducer dedicated to a textile coating application has been designed and developed to deal with a 3 meter textile width. ■■ Fig2: Prototype of classic tubular ultrasonic tran

copyright © cedrat technologies | Presentation - 02/2014 www.cedrat-technologies.com | [email protected] THE FP7 SONO PROJECT CEDRAT TECHNOLOGIES SONICATOR CEDRAT ( T TECHNOLOGIES X | Innovation in Mechatronics At the beginning of the project, a conventional tubular ultrasonic transducer was designed in order to gather knowledge about the technology. The aim was to know the advantage and the inconvenient of solutions checked in the state of the art. Several prototypes based on the existent technology have been designed, optimized by simulation. Interesting results have been obtained by...