Osama Al-Swafy started his PhD project in Paunov Research Group at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Hull in October 2014. He graduated with PhD in Chemistry in 2020.  PhD supervisors: Prof. Vesselin N. Paunov (PI) and Prof Gillian Greenway (Co-PI)

Research project 1:

Microencapsulation of optical brighteners

Optical brighteners are a large class of additives which absorb light in the UV region and have blue fluorescence emission. They are used in development of better washing powder formulations but also have other applications as laser dyes.  In this project we are working on a novel methods for microencapsulation of optical brighteners in a range of core-shell microcapsules. The aims of the project involve better protection of the brightener dyes from interaction with the environment and controlling the adhesion of the brighteners to various interfaces.

Fig. 1. (A) Optical photographs of microencapsulated optical brighteners at various amounts of microencapsulating agent: LHS image – samples under daylight, RHS image – samples under UV light.