I-Corps: NC2 Team - Sustainable Polymer Nanocomposite

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力在于更轻、更强的聚合物复合材料，具有部分可持续性。“轻而强”的特点是聚合物复合材料必不可少的。这些复合材料已经在汽车工业中证明了它们的有效性，包括提高发动机效率、降低燃料消耗、减少二氧化碳排放和提高安全性。我们的聚合物纳米复合材料的增强性能包括重量更轻、强度更高、部分可持续性以及成本效益，这是当前复合材料行业的兴趣所在，并将使广泛的工业部门受益，如航空航天、汽车、体育、国防、建筑、包装、电气和电子、生物医学等。聚合物纳米复合材料的市场正在不断增长。根据联合市场研究公司发布的一项新研究，到2022年，全球聚合物纳米复合材料市场将达到115亿美元。I-Corps项目的基础是开发具有纳米级增强填料的聚合物复合材料以及部分可持续的聚合物基质。与传统的高分子复合材料相比，纳米填料的优势在于其显著的比表面积和巨大的界面面积。纳米填料的表面改性将有效地稳定纳米填料在聚合物基体中的分散，大大增强纳米填料与聚合物基体之间的界面键合，从而提高聚合物纳米复合材料的力学性能，这将为更轻、更强的材料带来巨大的潜力。同时，环境友好型生物基粘结剂的开发不仅可以取代传统的表面偶联剂来修饰纳米填料，而且可以部分取代传统的聚合物基体，以提高聚合物复合材料的可持续性和力学性能。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project lies in lighter and stronger polymer composite materials with partial sustainability. 'Light and strong' features are essential to polymer composites. These composites have demonstrated their effectiveness in the automobile industry from improved engine efficiency, low fuel consumption, reduction in the emission of CO2 and increased safety. The enhanced properties of our polymer nanocomposite materials including lighter weight, higher strength, and partial sustainability in combination with cost-effectiveness is of interest to the current composite industry and will benefit a wide range of industrial sectors such as aerospace, automotive, sports, defense, construction, packaging, electrical & electronics, biomedical etc. There is a growing market in polymer nanocomposites. The global polymer nanocomposite market will reach $11.5 billion by 2022 according to new research published by Allied Market Research.This I-Corps project is based on developing polymer composite materials with nanoscale reinforcing fillers as well as a partially sustainable polymer matrix. Compared to traditional polymer composite materials, benefits of nanofiller come from their significantly higher specific surface area and concurrently enormous interfacial area. Surface modification of nanofillers will be carried out to efficiently stabilize the dispersion of nanofillers in the polymer matrix, substantially strengthen interfacial bonding between nanofillers and the polymer matrix, and consequently improve mechanical performance of the polymer nanocomposites, which brings in great potential for even lighter and stronger materials. In the meantime, environmentally friendly bio-based binders will be developed to not only replace conventional surface coupling agents to surface-modify nanofillers, but also to partially replace the conventional polymer matrix to enhance the sustainability and mechanical performance of the resultant polymer composite materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.