U.S.-Switzerland Cooperative Research and Education: Rheology, Morphology and Modeling of New Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Materials

这项为期三年的美国-瑞士合作研究与教育奖学金为美国研究生提供了获得国际和跨学科研究经验的机会。无机玻璃聚合物杂化材料的研究涉及南密西西比大学聚合物与高性能材料学院的Joshua Otaigbe教授和他的研究生，以及苏黎世瑞士联邦理工学院（ETH）的Hans Christian Ottinger教授和他的团队。本文提出的无机玻璃-聚合物杂化材料属于一类较新的先进材料。其增强的固态性能包括增加韧性，高刚度和强度，阻燃性。这项国际合作努力的目标是了解控制无机-磷酸盐玻璃-有机聚合物杂化的热力学行为和微观结构形成的基本物理。研究人员建议学习如何控制将磷酸玻璃原料和有机聚合物加工成价格合理的结构部件，并确定这类混合复合材料的技术潜力。本提案中的建模方法可以为该系列材料生成加工/结构/属性图，并可能减少或消除工业中常见的昂贵的“试错”实践。这是建立合理的设计原则的第一步，指导新混合动力系统的综合和新工程处理。更广泛的影响拟议中的项目将为研究生提供研究培训，并通过与欧洲领先研究人员建立新的联系来促进他们的职业发展。学生将体验跨学科的基础知识如何与解决实际问题相联系。该项目还利用了苏黎世联邦理工学院的互补专业知识和优秀的研究资源。瑞士集团是聚合物流体流变学、热力学和计算模拟方面的专家。他们开创了许多理论模型、数值工具和新型流变仪。该研究在确定无机玻璃-聚合物杂化材料的新应用方面具有额外的潜力。它们可以用作固态电池中的固体电解质或用作燃料电池的聚合物电解质膜，也可以用作核废料的储存材料。

This three-year award for U.S.-Switzerland cooperative research and education provides U.S. graduate students with the opportunity to gain international and interdisciplinary research experiences. The investigation of inorganic glass-polymer hybrid materials involves Professor Joshua Otaigbe and his graduate students at the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials, University of Southern Mississippi and Professor Hans Christian Ottinger and his group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Inorganic glass-polymer hybrid materials of this proposal belong to a relatively new class of advanced materials. Among their enhanced solid-state properties are increased toughness, high stiffness and strength, flame resistance. Intellectual MeritThe goal of this international collaborative effort is to understand the basic physics governing the thermodynamic behavior and microstructure formation of inorganic-phosphate glass-organic polymer hybrids. The investigators propose to learn how to control the processing of the raw phosphate glass and organic polymer into affordable, structural parts, and to identify the technological potential of this class of hybrid composites. The modeling approach in this proposal could lead to processing/structure/property maps for this family of materials and may reduce or eliminate costly "trial and error" practice that is common in industry. This is a first step toward establishing rational design principles to guide the synthesis and processing of new engineering of the new hybrid systems. Broader ImpactsThe proposed project will provide research training to graduate students and advance their careers through new connections to leading European researchers. Students will experience how fundamental interdisciplinary knowledge is linked to solving a practical problem. The project also takes advance of complementary expertise and excellent research resources at ETH Zurich. The Swiss group is expert in the rheology, thermodynamics, and computational simulations of polymeric fluids. They have pioneered a number of theoretical models, numerical tools and novel rheometers. The research has additional potential for identifying new applications for inorganic glass-polymer hybrid materials. They could be used as solid electrolytes in solid-state batteries or polymer electrolyte membranes for fuel cells or as storage materials for nuclear wastes.