Marta: “We started working at CSIRO at the same time…two and a half years ago? Basically we’re working with very tiny crystals, called MOFs. They are extremely porous nanomaterials, which means they can store or soak up many different types of molecules like carbon dioxide or other harmful contaminants. They can lessen the environmental footprint of industries and safely store new alternative fuels, like hydrogen. Up until now, though, MOFs have only been produced in the lab in very small amounts that are not enough to test out their potential. My project is looking at producing MOFs at a larger scale so we can start using them in real world applications.”
Kang: “So I’m mainly working in the biomedical area with the same crystals Marta’s trying to scale-up. For me I’m trying to put these biomolecules, like proteins, enzymes, or DNA into the MOF crystals so we can have a new application such as storing genetic information for tens of millions of years, like a fossil. This is one of the projects I’m working on. Another project, we’re putting enzymes into MOFs so you can use them at elevated temperatures, you know, like in boiling water or something.”
Marta: “As a young researcher, it’s complicated to find a permanent position where you can focus on your scientific interests, so working at CSIRO is a great opportunity for me to apply my science to real applications. So I think, for one of my goals, I’d like to be working in industry – doing big science. At the moment, we’ve just teamed up with the flow chemistry group and, using a new process found here at CSIRO, we can scale up the MOFs. We’re about to start designing and building this new part of the plant, and to start testing the materials.”
Kang: “I would like to be a research leader, because discovering new things in science is not only interesting and rewarding, but helpful for society. But, of course, we need to transform them into industry. I think we’re doing that by discovering the new things.”
Marta: “Outside of work I like to go hiking and rock climbing and in some point in the future I would like to brew my own beer.”
Kang: “I’m not sure because… I just… we’re expecting our baby in November.”
Marta: “No way! No.”
Kang: “…I thought I told you.”
*Kang has subsequently taken up a position at UNSW.
Kang: “What are my plans for the weekend? Trying to recover from jetlag. We were in Italy for two weeks, getting a tour of their synchrotron. We just got back last night.”
[Interviewer: Well then, thanks again for agreeing to take part this morning.]
Marta: “I think it’s a good opportunity to display our research with MOFs and the new flow chemistry work that we are doing at CSIRO and explain to our community what are we doing and why.”
Kang: “This happened with some of my research and the media surrounding a break-and-enter at my home.”
Marta: “Exactly.”
Kang: “The break-in didn’t motivate my research, it was more of a natural flow that occurred after the discovery. Basically we’d found that proteins can serve as nuclear seeds for our MOF crystals to grow on. In normal conditions, MOFs won’t grow in a solvent, but when we add a drop of protein, the MOFs grow around them. Once I had discovered this, I thought ‘oh why don’t we try letting MOFs crystallise on fingerprints, since they contain proteins’. But, I think that doesn’t translate so well for the news promotions, so they went with headlines like ‘scientist develops fingerprint detecting technology after house was broken into’. So it didn’t really happen like that…but the break-in was real.”
To learn more about Kang and Marta's work with MOFs, go here.
