Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Sustainable Rubber Products: Innovation, Science and Engineering = SuRPrISE

在美国国家科学基金会（NSF）建立的“下一个千年的可持续工程”框架内，拟议的工程研究中心（ERC）的愿景是解开天然橡胶（NR）生物合成的奥秘，这是橡胶科学和技术的最后一个“圣杯”。塑料和橡胶废物产生了巨大的社会影响。我们必须找到解决方案，解决可持续生产和回收问题，从而实现闭环。拟议中的ERC将专注于橡胶技术的更新，彻底改变一个从上个千年以来一直以科学和工程为基础的领域。生物基和完全可回收的聚合物是迫切需要的，因为人类正在被塑料和橡胶废物所取代。这项计划拨款提案将使我们能够把最好的计划和团队放在一起，帮助人类拯救我们的地球。尽管有近4,000年的历史和现代生物学的工具，我们仍然不完全了解天然橡胶是如何由植物制成的。美国没有自己的商业生物基橡胶生产，2018年进口了价值超过15亿美元的这种原材料，这对一个需要价值130亿美元的天然橡胶用于含天然橡胶的轮胎以及许多其他天然橡胶产品的经济至关重要。随着对天然橡胶需求的持续增加，我们现在面临着严重的供应问题。拟议的ERC将产生找到圣杯所需的知识，并了解不同的植物物种如何生产天然橡胶，提供使用可再生资源中的单体生产合成橡胶所必需的方法，这些单体与橡胶树橡胶的特性相匹配，并培养和扩大国内橡胶作物的工业级生产。该ERC的包容性和多样性得到了解决，例如：最初的领导团队有3名女性和2名男性，自闭症和睡眠障碍的年轻人的特定子集将参与其中。为来自这些群体的高功能学生提供机会，将利用他们在讨论、解释和预测中抽象空间推理的绝对优势，使更传统的“正常”思想者受益。拟议的ERC将致力于天然橡胶的战略重点基础研究，特别强调国内作物，生物合成与橡胶树（橡胶树）天然橡胶相匹配的大分子，即，高分子量顺式-1，4聚异戊二烯。我们的目标是科学和工程的无缝融合，从而实现可持续和生态良好的可扩展性，与工业合作建立，将新发现转化为具有弹性的生物经济中的商业可行性应用。更具体地说，该中心将致力于弹性体和交联橡胶的战略基础研究，以实现可持续性的绝对收益，同时满足或超过传统和新应用所需的当前性能水平。 将开发和验证解决材料需求和差距的新方法，创建一个强大的，广泛适用的商业弹性示范，该示范由可持续和有弹性的自然系统提供信息，并被我们的工业合作者及其客户接受。 为了实现这一目标，该中心打算：1）了解天然橡胶生物合成，包括NR结构，以及NR生物合成中涉及的酶的结构; 2）克服美国替代NR作物的扩张限制; 3）通过将真正的仿生学与化学，生物化学和生物可持续生产系统相结合，发现NR的合成聚合物类似物; 4）从可再生资源合成具有机械性能的新组合的新的可回收交联橡胶和复合材料，特别关注未满足的性能和结构需求;第五章）通过分析和预测所有发现的商业可行性和可持续性，使其符合工业采用和生产的要求从利基市场到商品规模。这些目标只能通过一个组织良好的ERC来实现，该规划赠款的目标是解决社会影响，融合，利益相关者社区和具有有效领导/管理的团队组建。拟议的远景需要企业、工业和政府组织之间的跨学科合作。在这些合作的基础上，可以建立一个新的学科“可扩展的科学”，它将在基础和可扩展的水平上整合科学和工程。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Within the framework of "Sustainable Engineering for the Next Millennium" established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) the vision of the proposed Engineering Research Center (ERC) is to unravel the mystery of natural rubber (NR) biosynthesis, the last "holy grail" of rubber science and technology. Plastic and rubber waste have created an enormous societal impact. We must find solutions to address sustainable production and recycling, closing the loop. The proposed ERC will focus on renewal of rubber technology, revolutionizing a field that has been based on science and engineering from the last millennium. Bio-based AND fully recyclable polymers are sorely needed since humankind is being overtaken by plastic and rubber waste. This Planning Grant proposal will enable us to put together the best program and team possible, helping mankind to save our Earth. In spite of almost a 4,000 year history and the tools of modern biology, we still do not fully understand how natural rubber is made by plants. The United States has no commercial bio-based rubber production of its own and in 2018 imported over $1.5 billion worth of this raw material, critical to an economy that requires $13 billion worth of natural rubber for natural rubber containing tires, as well as many other natural rubber products. As demand for natural rubber continues to increase, we now face a significant supply problem. The proposed ERC will generate the knowledge needed to find the holy grail and understand how different plant species produce natural rubber, provide the methods essential to producing synthetic rubber using monomers from renewable resources that matches the properties of Hevea rubber, and cultivate and scale domestic rubber crops to industrial-level production. Inclusion and diversity in this ERC are addressed, for example: the initial leadership team has 3 women and 2 men, and a specific subset of young people on the autistic and dyslexic spectrum will be engaged. Providing opportunities to high functioning students from these groups will leverage their absolute strength in abstract spatial reasoning in discussion, interpretation and prediction, to benefit and SuRPrISE the more conventional "normal" thinkers.The proposed ERC will address strategically focused fundamental research in natural rubbers, with special emphasis on domestic crops that biosynthesize macromolecules that match natural rubber from rubber trees (Hevea), viz., high molecular weight cis-1,4 polyisoprene. We aim at seamless blending of science and engineering that leads to sustainable and ecologically-sound scalability, built with industrial collaborations that will translate new discoveries into commercially viable applications within a resilient bio-economy. More specifically, the Center will address strategic fundamental research in elastomers and crosslinked rubbers to achieve absolute gains in sustainability, while meeting or exceeding current levels of performance required by both legacy and new applications. New ways of approaching material needs and gaps will be developed and validated, creating a robust, broadly applicable demonstration of commercial resiliency informed by sustainable and resilient natural systems, accepted by our industrial collaborators and their customers. To achieve this, the Center intends to: 1) understand natural rubber biosynthesis, including NR structure, and the structure of enzymes involved in NR biosynthesis; 2) overcome limitations to expansion of alternative NR crops in the US; 3) discover synthetic polymer analogs of NR by combining true biomimicry with chemical, biochemical and biologically-sustainable production systems; 4) synthesize new recyclable crosslinked rubbers and composite materials with novel combinations of mechanical properties from renewable resources, especially focusing on un-met performance and structural needs; 5) qualify all discoveries through analysis and prediction of their commercial viability and sustainability as industrial adoption and production moves from niche markets to commodity scale. These goals can only be achieved by a well-organized ERC, the goal of this planning grant addressing societal impact, convergence, stakeholder community, and team formation having effective leadership/management. The proposed vision requires interdisciplinary collaboration among academe, industry and government organizations. Based on these collaborations a new discipline of "Scalable Scigineering" can be established, which will integrate science and engineering at a fundamental and scalable level.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.