Fong Tin Cheng’s scientific contributions

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Publications (1)

Fig. 1. Experimental setup The figure shows (A) the overall purposes and procedures of the experiments performed in this study. The arrows represent the flow of the procedure of the experiments while the lines represent the procedures (on the right) in need to validate the purposes (on the left). (B) Design of iron plate used in the vertical burning test setup. The purple color indicates the iron plate. The number is represented in mm. (C) Vertical burning test experimental set up (modified according to the ASTM-D6413 standard). Spirit burner was put 7 cm below the cotton fabrics and removed once the cotton fabric was ignited.
Fig. 2. Confirmation of protein expression using western blotExemplary Western blot analyses illustrating (A) Successful expression of SR-GST (53.82 kDa) and SR-CBD (53.87 kDa) in expected size. Consistent with our hypothesis, SR-CBD protein can be induced by IPTG while SR-GST protein is consistently expressed under ptac promoter. (B) Successful expression of alpha casein (25.42 kDa) and alpha casein-CBD (50.71 kDa) proteins, where both of them can be induced by IPTG. The fold change was measured with ImageJ.
Fig. 3. IR spectroscopy of cotton fabrics with different coatings IR spectrum showing the successful coating of proteins onto the cotton fabrics. The color of the spectrum (left) represented the group (text on the right) of protein coating it belongs to.
Fig. 4. Exemplary vertical burning testsFigure showing three exemplary vertical burning tests with three protein coating (Left: SR Protein-CBD; Middle: pET-11a; Right: Deionised Water), at (A) 10s (B) 40s (C)60s after the ignition of the cotton fabrics. See Supplementary Video 1 for details of the burning procedure across time.
Fig. 5. Exemplary protein retention test using confocal microscopy Figure illustrating retentions of RFP signals (coated on the cotton fabrics) for (A) alpha casein-RFP and (B) alpha casein-CBD-RFP. Left column represented the signals without any washing/soaking procedure (control); middle column represented the signals with the soaking procedure; right column represented the signals with the washing procedure. See Table 4 for detailed analyses of RFP signals.

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Using recombinant adhesive proteins as durable and green flame-retardant coatings
  • Article
  • Full-text available

December 2021

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110 Reads

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33 Citations

Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology

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Owen Lok In Lo

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Fong Tin Cheng

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Leo Chi U. Seak

Current fire retardants are known to be toxic to humans and our environment. As environmental-friendly flame retardants (FRs), protein-based flame retardants have been studied extensively recently, even though they are not durable. In this study, we designed, synthesized and tested a durable protein-based FR through the fusion of the adhesion domain from either mussel foot protein-5 (mfp-5) or cellulose-binding domain (CBD) with flame retardant protein (SR protein and alpha casein). We first verified the expression of the recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli using Western blot. Then, we coated the fusion protein (carrying cell lysates) to cotton fabrics and wood and verified with Infrared (IR) spectroscopy. Using a vertical burning test and wood flammability test, we confirmed the flame retardancy of the materials after the protein coating. In the vertical burning test, the SR protein and alpha casein flame retardant proteins with the CBD adhesion domain showed a 50.0% and 43.3% increase in flame retardancy. The data is also consistent in the wood flame retardancy test. Confocal imaging experiments also suggested these new fire retardants can be preserved on the materials well even after washing. Overall, our results showed that flame-retardant proteins with adhesion domains are high potential candidates of green alternative flame retardants.

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Citations (1)

... As shown in Fig. 8d and e, the residual carbon content of the films doped with protein fibers is generally increased, which plays a protective role and limits the contact between oxygen and combustibles . Amino acids, as the main component of protein fibers, are also found to be positively correlated with flame retardancy (Leong et al. 2021). More specifically, amino acids such as cysteine in protein fibers have been evaluated as effective flame-retardant systems for cellulose substrates because these components can affect the formation of carbon from cellulose pyrolysis (Alongi et al. 2014). ...

Reference:

Upcycling tannery sludge into micro/nano protein fibers to enhance the cellulose-based films for mechanical properties and flame retardancy
Using recombinant adhesive proteins as durable and green flame-retardant coatings

Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology

·

Owen Lok In Lo

·

Fong Tin Cheng

·

[...]

·

Leo Chi U. Seak