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In this context, we produced thermoresponsive ionic exchange adsorbents via 'grafting from' polymerisation, and consequently applied them to a novel travelling cooling zone reactor (TCZR). Sepharose CL-6B, Superose 6 prep grade, and Superose 12 prep grade were selected as the base matrices in order to find the most suitable particle size and pore diameter for the modification with thermoresponsive polymer. Both cation exchange adsorbents (thermoCEX) and anionic exchange adsorbents (thermoAEX) modified with poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) or pNIPAAm were introduced in Chapter 2, 3, and 5. All resins' binding affinity and maximum adsorption capacity increased with elevated temperature, however, the protein 'adsorption-desorption' behaviour of thermoCEX is much superior to that of thermoAEX. We also introduced cation exchange adsorbents with poly( ethylene glycol) or PEG in Chapter 4, although the thennoresponsiveness of thermoCEX-PEG-S6PG has been found even better than those of thermoCEX, the dynamic protein binding performance is limited due to its relatively lower protein binding capacity at higher temperature.

This thesis focuses on four inter-related research topics on the design and analysis of compact planar ultra wide-band (UWB) monopole antennas for future wireless communications, namely, a planar super-wide-band (SWB) monopole antenna, a planar UWB antenna with band-notched characteristics, a planar UWB antenna with reconfigurable band-rejection features, and a planar UWB multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna. A novel Mickey-mouse shaped planar monopole antenna with SWB performance is proposed and investigated. Three different techniques for bandwidth enhancement are implemented. The antenna is evolved from the traditional circular monopole antenna and has achieved an impedance bandwidth of more than 100:1 and a stable radiation patterns over a wider bandwidth. The design of a compact planar UWB monopole antenna (22 mm × 34 mm), incorporated with five m-shaped resonators (MSRs) at different positions, to achieve quintuple-band-notched performance is presented. The frequency-domain performance (in term of reflection coefficients, realized gain, efficiency, and radiation pattern), and time-domain performance (in term of pulse responses and fidelity), are investigated by simulation and measurement. The results show that the proposed UWB antenna has approximately omnidirectional radiation patterns and excellent band-notched behaviours and good time domain performance with the fidelity of more than 85.5% in the pulse response. A planar UWB monopole antenna with reconfigurable band-notched characteristics is also introduced. The band rejection is realized by incorporating two co-directional split ring resonators (CSRR) on the radiator element. Switches are added to the CSRR structures to achieve the reconfigurability. The proposed antenna can operate at different switching states including a UWB state, single and dual band-notched states with good rejection behaviours. Good radiation patterns and gain values are also obtained for different switching states. This compact wideband antenna can be very good candidate for a wide range of mobile portable applications. A compact planar UWB-MIMO antenna (60 mm × 45 mm) is presented for wireless applications. The wideband isolation of more than 15 dB is achieved by etching a new trident-like slot on the ground plane of the antenna. An equivalent circuit have been introduced for analysis and the diversity performances are studied. The results show that the proposed MIMO antenna is a very good candidate for wireless applications. The study of these four special antennas has demonstrated that, using various techniques, the planar monopole antenna can be an excellent choice for a wide range of wireless communication applications.