Katarzyna Kowal

Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd.

The worldwide increase in bacterial resistance and healthcare-associated bacterial infections pose a serious threat to human health. The antimicrobial photodynamic method reveals the opportunity for a new therapeutic approach that is based on the limited delivery of photosensitizer from the material surface. Nanoporous inorganic–organic composites...

Quantifying changes in bacteria cells in the presence of antibacterial treatment is one of the main challenges facing contemporary medicine; it is a challenge that is relevant for tackling issues pertaining to bacterial biofilm formation that substantially decreases susceptibility to biocidal agents. Three-dimensional label-free imaging and quantit...

A disruptive method of fabricating free-standing tapes of La-doped (BaCaSrPb)TiO 3 thermistors is demonstrated. The greatest advantage is that the free-standing tapes do not require high temperature co-firing of electrodes or reduced environment cofiring — soft oxidation cycle to obtain thermal sensitivity. The approach thus solves the long-standi...

A disruptive method of fabricating free-standing tapes of La-doped (BaCaSrPb)TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> thermistors is demonstrated. The greatest advantage is that the free-standing tapes do not require high temperature co-firing of electrodes or reduced environment cof...

The positive temperature co-efficient (PTC) of resistivity in BaTiO3 is a grain boundary effect, where the resistivity increases by several orders of magnitude near the transition temperature from ferroelectric (tetragonal) to paraelectric (cubic) phase. We combine electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) to...

The potential use of a novel multichannel optical system towards fast and non-destructive bacteria identification and its application for environmental bacteria characterisation on the strain level is presented. It is the first attempt to use the proposed optical method to study various bacteria species (Gram-negative, Gram-positive) commonly prese...

The ‘Advances in Optics: Reviews’ Book Series is published as an Open Access Books in order to significantly increase the reach and impact of these volumes, which also published in two formats: electronic (pdf) with full-color illustrations and print (paperback). The third of three volumes of this Book Series has organized by topics of high interes...

The discovery of piezoelectricity in calcined thin films and sintered ceramics of synthetic hydroxyapatite is of interest to understand the role of electricity in bone growth and to find use of piezoelectric implants in bone growth stimulation or deceleration and in energy harvesting to run spinal or neuro stimulators. Synthetic apatites including...

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) has emerged as a highly promising technique for materials sintering and production and can be used in surface coating and finishes as well as bulk material productions. This paper is devoted to study the parameters involved in SPS sintering of lead ferroelectric ceramics. A short general review on sintering is given fol...

The antibacterial properties of boron-containing compounds are well known although there are limited studies available on the pure boron nanoparticles. In this paper, nanoboron particles are characterized in terms of their particle size, shape, stability and surface charge before and after their application onto textile surfaces to study their impa...

There is a growing interest in applying titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalysis to eradicate microorganisms from contaminated surfaces, water and air. In this chapter, a background of TiO2 structure and properties in photocatalysis is presented. Issues concerning the effects of photoactivated TiO2 on a wide range of microorganisms have been highligh...

Silver nanoparticles and silver-doped nanomaterials are arguably the most successful nanotechnology products to reach market so far. It is due to their specific ionic and other physical properties that led to antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative activity. This chapter discusses current preparation methods and th...

First purified by Sir Alexander Fleming, antibiotics are small molecules produced by several fungal and bacterial species that were extremely useful from the era of the World War II. However, due to our lack of understanding of microbial evolution coupled with indiscriminate prescription and consumption, its use was soon proved inadequate to contai...

Despite the growing interest in antimicrobial textiles academic literature does not generally discuss the durability of the antimicrobial treatments in these textiles. This makes it difficult to estimate potential commercialisation as durability is one of the key prerequites for market entry of textile products. In this chapter, we elaborate this i...

While antimicrobial textiles have received considerable interest and attention from both the scientific community and general consumers, there have been very few studies investigating the durability of such antimicrobial activities. In this study, we describe the modification of the surface of textiles that were modified with commercially available...

Photocatalytic and in situ microbial activity of the amorphous and annealed states of Ag-doped and un-doped titania were examined. Studies on their structure, morphology, composition, and the photo-absorption characteristics of these materials were performed. These results were correlated with the photocatalytic and microbial activity against methi...

When a biomaterial is placed inside the body, a biological response is triggered almost instantaneously. With devices that need to remain in the body for long periods, such interactions can cause encrustation, plaque formation and aseptic loosening on the surface. These problems contribute to the patient's trauma and increase the risk of death. Ele...

The novel computer aided image processing analysis presented in this paper is used to evaluate the number of bacteria colonies. Proposed algorithm exploits the computer-aided calculations of optical transforms and it is implemented to the analysis of CCD recorded images of bacteria colonies. The diffraction patterns were approximated by the Fourier...

Developments in medicine and biomedical engineering contribute more and more to solving some problems in car- diovascular surgery. In XXth century many innovative me- dical devices were proposed, i.e. cardiovascular stents that are used for restoring the smooth blood flow. The improper diet, hiperlipidemia, hypertension, obesity or smoking may caus...