What is a hagfish? Hagfish are bottom-dwelling craniates that can quickly produce copious amounts of slime when provoked. This slime is useful against predators that attempt to suck the hagfish into their mouths, which can clog their gills and give the hagfish enough time to escape. (Bernards) (Böni) How does the slime work? A hagfish’s body releases slime through slime glands in its skin. Deactivated slime has two main components; gland mucous cells (GMCs) and gland thread cells (GTCs) (Bernards). The GMCs produce vesicles that are about 15 μm in length, and when they come in contact with with water the vesicles swell and rupture to form mucin strands (Böni). The GTCs make skeins about 150 μm long and one skein will unravel to form one long protein thread that’s about 15cm after making contact with flowing water (Bernards) (Böni). The thread and mucin strands will mix to form slime. How does the patch work? Most patches only cover the surface of a pipe leak, meaning that water passing through the tank can still erode the pipe and worsen the leak. FishFix’s design includes hagfish slime, known for being highly hydrophilic, which will increase in volume after making contact with the water flow. The slime will fill up the leak, preventing water erosion. The patch will also be utilizing an adhesive that is water proof as well to serve as an extra layer of protection. We were unable to obtain actual hagfish for the project since the transport would stress it to the point where it would produce enough slime to suffocate itself, but instead made our own kind of slime… For the prototype, however, we will be using a small piece of sponge that will represent the slime. When the sponge comes in contact with water, it will, much like the slime, take it in and start to expand and become something bigger. Potential Materials List:
Dialysis paper
Hagfish exudate
small, flexible sheet of material which is sticky on one side (ets fabric)
In order to reach the final product, the group would first have to make a prototype. (elaborate more) First, we made a few rough sketches of what we imagined the patch may look like. We wanted to contain the hagfish exudate but also allow for water to come through the material in which the slime would be in, and thought about using a stretchy synthetic material. Synthetics tend to be more elastic than natural, and can be hydrophobic so it won’t absorb the water. However, we didn’t know whether the fabric would allow for water to easily pass through or retain the exudate and decided to scrap the idea. One of us then began to think about a lab we had done in our Biology class involving dialysis tubing and selective permeability. We had learned that dialysis tubing had tiny pores that allowed small molecules to pass through and would retain big molecules like polysaccharides. Since the exudate and the slime seem like they would be composed of very large molecules, we thought that we could contain each with dialysis tubing. Another group member began looking at adhesive bandages and thought about using an adhesive similar to those in band aids, and we decided to create another rough sketch based off the design of a typical bandaid. Another member shared an experience with us in which she had injured her ankle and required the use of an athletic patch to heal it. It was transparent in the center and resembled what we had in mind for our product. However, it could only be used for sports injuries unlike our product, which can be used for a variety of household leaks. For the adhesive, one member found videos online on how bandages are made and found that the brown adhesive part was made of a two-way stretchy material referred to as ETS fabric. However, the group desired an adhesive that was more reliable in terms of resistance, and began looking at various waterproof tapes available on the market. One tape that stood out was the Flex Tape, a tape so strong and waterproof that it can be used to tape a boat back together and still function For the dialysis tubing, we looked at articles that indicated that the size of the slime is about -- and decided on a tubing with, which would retain the slime yet allow for water to pass through. The dialysis tubing will form a makeshift capsule around the slime so that Any excess water can also get out through the same process Random Info Water pressure doesn’t exceed more than 80 psi