CAREER: Integrating Research and Education via Low-Temperature Solventless Formation of Hierarchical Porous-on-Porous Materials

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This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant provides funding for the development of a new technique to deposit functional porous polymers onto porous materials in order to develop microfluidic devices for disease detection and multifunctional filtration membranes for water purification. The primary objective of this research is to determine the mechanism and kinetics associated with using significantly reduced substrate temperatures in order to simultaneously freeze and polymerize monomer, leading to the formation of novel porous-on-porous materials. The research approach is to systematically evaluate the effects of process parameters on the pore size distribution, investigate the formation of both uncapped and capped membranes, determine whether localized cooling can control pore formation in the x, y, and z-directions, and utilize the new-found implications of controlling the symmetry, surface chemistry, and structure of these membranes to create innovative, real-world multifunctional porous-on-porous materials.If successful, the results of this research will lead to a fundamental understanding of the chemistry and physics associated with low-temperature deposition of polymer membranes, and ultimately the fabrication of next-generation diagnostic devices and purification membranes. A series of hands-on demonstrations will be developed to ignite interest in engineering fields among middle school students in downtown Los Angeles that rarely have access to such topics. A new multi-tiered mentorship program will be created by pairing female students with female faculty in order to foster career development and help improve the retention of women in engineering fields.