Professor receives NSF RAPID grant to fight COVID-19

The six-month $100,000 grant is for the development of a set of decontamination foam formulations that are significantly more effective for application across a variety of surfaces while providing uniform deposition of the decontaminant, thus reducing the amount and frequency of applications. Somasundaran’s group, led by Associate Research Scientist Partha Patra, aims to add a special class of molecules—surfactin—to the foam formulation, which functions both as soap molecules promoting the formation of foam and as a disinfectant that enables the reduction of the bleach content. By manipulating the surfactant-to-water ratio and surfactant type and content, the team will tune the foam texture to enable complete coverage of the disinfectant on surfaces.

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