CAREER: Directed Self-Assembly of Multifunctional Polymer Nanoreactors for Sustainable Chemical Manufacturing

该学院早期职业发展（Career）奖将开拓纳米级化学处理，以实现复杂的化学产品，如药品，显著减少危险废物。生产药品会产生大量的有害废物，比期望的产品多100倍。侵蚀性溶剂占大部分的浪费。虽然溶剂是化学反应产物所必需的，但它们的最大量用于产物的分离、分离和纯化。多功能反应分离反应器的新发现将提高工艺效率并减少浪费。该奖项支持基础研究，以提供开发多功能聚合物纳米反应器所需的知识，促进加速反应和自发，节能和无溶剂产品分离。最终，纳米反应器将导致从生物质中高效和可持续地制造药物和基本化学品。可持续制造技术的进步将使美国经济和社会受益。这些科学发现将与多功能纳米反应器技术和可持续化学制造的高级培训相结合，面向本科生和研究生。技术培训将与社区外展相结合，以扩大代表性不足的群体的参与，并通过与里士满高等成就学院和弗吉尼亚科学博物馆合作，加强工程教育。执行常规单元操作的能力，例如：在纳米尺度上，固定床反应和液-液萃取将提高液相化学处理的安全性、效率和可持续性。该奖项将研究一类新的多功能聚合物纳米反应器，该反应器通过自发相分离将反应和产物分离结合起来。该方法是在密闭撞击式射流混合器中自组装聚合物-纳米颗粒催化剂纳米反应器。聚合物组分的模块化选择将有助于理解(a)聚合物性质如何影响纳米反应器的自组装，以及(b)聚合物/反应物/产物的相互作用如何影响反应动力学和运输。纳米反应器将用于越来越复杂的氧化反应，在单个纳米反应器内执行多个反应和分离步骤。在实验结果的基础上，建立描述纳米尺度化学处理的理论模型。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will pioneer nanoscale chemical processing to achieve complex chemical products, such as, pharmaceuticals, with significantly reduced hazardous waste. Producing pharmaceuticals generates large amounts of hazardous waste, as much as 100 times more than desired product. Aggressive solvents account for the majority of waste. While solvents are necessary for chemical reaction products, their largest quantities are used in product isolation, separation, and purification. New discoveries in multifunctional reactors capable of reaction and separation will improve process efficiency and reduce waste. This award supports fundamental research to provide the knowledge needed to develop multifunctional polymer nanoreactors that facilitate accelerated reaction and spontaneous, energy efficient and solvent-free product isolation. Ultimately, the nanoreactors would lead to efficient and sustainable manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and basic chemicals from biomass. Advances in sustainable manufacturing technologies will benefit the U.S. economy and society. The scientific discoveries will be integrated with advanced training in multifunctional nanoreactor technology and sustainable chemical manufacturing for undergraduate and graduate students. The technical training will be coupled with community outreach to broaden participation of underrepresented groups and enhance engineering education through partnering with Higher Achievement of Richmond and the Science Museum of Virginia.The ability to perform conventional unit operations,e.g., fixed bed reactions, and liquid-liquid extractions, on the nanoscale would improve the safety, efficiency and sustainability of liquid phase chemical processing. This award will investigate a new class of multifunctional polymer nanoreactors that combine reaction and product isolation by spontaneous phase separation. The approach is to self-assemble polymer-nanoparticle catalyst nanoreactors in confined impinging jet mixers. Modular selection of the polymer components will lead to the understanding of (a) how polymer properties affect nanoreactor self-assembly and (b) how polymer/reactant/product interactions affect reaction kinetics and transport. The nanoreactors will be used for oxidation reactions of increasing complexity to perform multiple reaction and separation steps within a single nanoreactor. Based on the experimental results, a theoretical model to describe nanoscale chemical processing will be established.