SEES Fellows: Synthesis of a New Class of Thermostable Proton Conducting Materials to Enable High Efficiency Hydrogen Fuel Cells

该项目由NSF科学、工程和教育促进可持续发展研究员(SEE FERLOS)计划支持，目标是帮助实现必要的发现，为导致环境、能源和社会可持续发展的行动提供信息，同时培养必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。可持续发展科学是一个新兴领域，它解决了在不损害环境、不牺牲子孙后代满足其需求的能力的情况下满足人类需求的挑战。一支强大的科学队伍需要接受跨学科研究和思维方面的教育和培训，特别是在可持续发展科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使一位有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中确立自己的地位。这意味着联谊会项目将重点放在汽车可持续替代燃料的开发上。该项目中的伙伴关系和活动将扩大研究的范围，并有助于推动PI的职业发展。例如，华纳巴布科克研究所带来了可持续创新商业化的专业知识；埃里克·贝克曼将提供生命周期评估知识，Beyond良性将帮助K-12扩展。PI将教授一门关于绿色化学的课程，并领导一个关于这一主题的夏季模块，作为针对未被充分代表的少数族裔学生的夏季桥梁计划的一部分。该项目的科学核心是为高效燃料电池创造新材料。用于国内汽车的汽油的生产和燃烧仍然是全球碳排放的来源和化石燃料需求的驱动力。对大气碳水平的长期控制将需要商业实施无污染的替代技术，这些技术依赖于现成的和可再生的燃料来源。该项目的重点是创造新的聚合物电解质膜(PEM)，使可行的汽车氢燃料电池的开发成为可能。该项目包括用作汽车燃料电池质子传导膜的聚间苯醚的合成、表征和潜在的商业化。聚苯醚(PPO)的磺化反应已经得到了类似杜邦Nafion的质子电导率的材料，但磺化的PPO或相关聚合物PES和PEEK用于燃料电池的可行性因其易氧化降解而受到限制。最近在宿主导师的实验室的研究阐明了一种新的途径，通过SNAR阶梯生长机制来获得更强的氧化能力。随着这些聚间苯氧化物现在第一次容易获得，PI建议创建磺化的、羧化的、烷基化的和碱性残基标记的聚间苯氧化物，以优化这些材料的结构，并测量和最大限度地提高它们的离子传导能力，以应用于燃料电池。两种廉价的功能化单体1，3-二苯酚(一种生物可再生原料)和一种1，3-苯二卤化物(或杂环类似物)的共聚提供了以最少的合成工作量和废物轻松合并多个官能团的机会。为了评估这些材料用于商业应用的工业可行性，PI将进行生命周期和市场分析。PI/SEES同事和本科生在东道主导师的实验室进行的研究将需要合成功能化的聚间苯醚，并进行光谱/材料分析，如测量热稳定性和相变行为。与合作伙伴Mentor的合作将侧重于更复杂的材料和应用分析，如离子传导测量、氧化稳定性、化学降解途径和膜制备。拟议的活动包括有机合成和聚合物化学方面的高影响力研究，方法是以可持续的方式创造可用于社会推动清洁燃料来源的材料。PI将寻求将这项研究传达给科学界、工业界、K-12学生、本科生和公众。科尔比学院热衷于招收和保留种族和民族多样化的学生群体，特别是在科学领域。鉴于早期和持续的研究活动对学生在科学领域的职业发展产生了积极影响，科尔比的教职员工创建了科尔比科学成就计划(CAPS)，这是一个以研究为基础的夏季桥牌计划，面向具有非裔美国人、拉丁裔/a人和美洲原住民背景的新生。暑期项目将课程学习和研究直接与第一年前的暑期教职员工结合起来，并培养与入学后坚持的教职员工之间的关系。该计划采取为期一周的专题研究模块的形式，由教师与整个CAPS课程一起进行。在授权期内，作为CAPS计划的一部分，PI将领导一个绿色化学模块，并在学年期间教授同一主题的高级课程。和平倡议将通过与Beyond良性伙伴关系为K-12和公众宣传进一步扩大工作范围。为了吸引更多的公众受众，PI将寻求帮助学生在当地报纸上发表他们为课堂撰写的关于当地商界采用绿色化学原则的故事。

This project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This SEES Fellowship project focuses on the development of sustainable alternative fuels for automobiles. Partnerships and activities in this project will broaden the reach of the research and help advance the PI's career development. For example, the Warner Babcock Institute brings expertise with commercialization of sustainable innovation; Eric Beckman will provide knowledge of life cycle assessment, and Beyond Benign will help with K-12 outreach. The PI will teach a course on green chemistry as well as lead a summer module on the subject as part of a summer bridge program for underrepresented minority students.The scientific core of the project is on the creation of new materials for high-efficiency fuel cells. The production and combustion of gasoline for use in domestic automobiles continues to be a worldwide source of global carbon emissions and driver of fossil fuel demand. Long term controls on atmospheric carbon levels will require the commercial implementation of nonpolluting alternative technologies that rely on readily available and renewable fuel sources. This project is focused on the creation of new polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) that will enable the development of viable automotive hydrogen fuel cells. The project includes synthesis, characterization, and potential commercialization of poly(meta-phenylene oxides) for use as proton conducting membranes in automotive fuel cells. Sulfonation of poly(para-phenylene oxides) (PPO) has yielded materials with proton conductivties similar to Dupont's nafion, but the viability of sulfonated PPO or the related polymers PES and PEEK for fuel cell applications is limited due to their susceptibility to oxidative degradation. Recent research in the host mentor's lab elucidated a novel route to more oxidatively robust meta-linked aryl ethers via an SNAr step-growth mechanism. With these poly(meta-phenylene oxides) now readily available for the first time, the PI proposes to create sulfonated, carboxylated, alkylated, and basic-residue-tagged poly(meta-phenylene oxides), to optimize the construction of such materials, and to measure and maximize their ion conduction capacity for application in fuel cells. The co-polymerization of two inexpensive, functionalizable monomers, a 1,3-diphenol (a biorenewable feedstock) and a 1,3-benzenedihalide (or heteroaromatic analogue) presents the opportunity to easily incorporate multiple functional groups with minimal synthetic effort and waste. In order to evaluate the industrial viability of these materials for commercial application, the PI will perform life cycle and market analyses.Research by the PI/SEES Fellow and undergraduate students in the host mentor's lab would entail synthesis of functionalized poly(meta-phenylene oxides) and spectroscopic/materials analysis, such as measuring thermal stability and phase transition behavior. Collaboration with the partner mentor will focus on more sophisticated materials and applications analyses, such as ion conduction measurements, oxidative stability, chemical degradation pathways, and membrane preparation. The proposed activities include high impact research in organic synthesis and polymer chemistry by creating materials in a sustainable way that can be used in society's push for cleaner fuel sources. The PI will seek to communicate this research to the scientific community, industry, K-12 students, undergraduate and public audiences.Colby College is keen to recruit and retain a racially and ethnically diverse student body, especially within the sciences. With the understanding that early and continued research activities positively influence students to follow career paths in science, faculty at Colby created the Colby Achievement Program in Sciences (CAPS), a research-based summer bridge program for incoming first-year students of African American, Latino/a, and Native American backgrounds. The summer program combines coursework and research directly with faculty in the summer before the first year, and fosters relationships with faculty and staff that persist upon matriculation. The program takes the form of thematic 1-week research modules conducted by faculty with the entire CAPS class. During the grant period, the PI will lead a green chemistry module as part of the CAPS program, as well as teach an upper-level course on the same subject during the academic semester. The PI would further broaden the reach of the work by partnering with Beyond Benign for K-12 and public outreach. In order to engage a larger public audience, the PI will seek to help students publish in local newspapers stories that they write for class about principles of green chemistry being adopted in the local business community.