Phosphorous is essential to food production. Rising global population is increasing demand for high quality foods and production of plant-based biofuels, causing the rapid depletion of natural phosphorus resources. This non-sustainable sourcing of phosphorus is underscored by the fact that, ultimately, mined phosphate is lost from the food production system as agricultural runoff, livestock manure and food-processing wastes. In addition, phosphate-containing waste streams contaminate natural bodies of water, which leads to a decrease in biodiversity and potable drinking water. Therefore, efforts that advance the separation and recycling of phosphorus are necessary for protecting natural bodies of water and sustaining global food production. This work aims to develop a reversible bio-molecular recognition system that will remove phosphate where it is problematic, recover it, and reinsert it into the global food-production system as a means for enhancing sustainable use of this scarce resource.
PART 2: TECHNICAL SUMMARY
A challenge in materials science is the development of materials for selective capture and release of key nutrients (e.g., phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium) and contaminants (e.g., heavy metals, organochlorine pesticides, pathogens). This work aims to develop a novel, optimized, multifunctional material for selective separation of phosphorus based on biologically inspired, peptide amphiphiles with supramolecular phosphate recognition capabilities. The tunable self-assembly properties of these peptide amphiphiles will be used to engineer a system that (1) sequesters phosphorus from model waste streams, (2) enables specific release and reuse of phosphorus, and (3) inhibits non-specific interactions and bacterial growth that can lead to bio-fouling. The stages of this proposed work will progress from design and synthesis of these functional peptides with hydrophobic conjugation, to assembly of these molecules on surfaces and in micellar constructs, to measurement of phosphate binding energetics and kinetics. In parallel with this experimental development cycle, molecular simulations will be aimed at elucidating the phosphate-binding mechanism of the peptide candidates in the experimental work and discovering peptides with improved supramolecular recognition and assembly properties, which can then feed back into the experimental program.
