AccelNet Implementation: International Network For Researching, Advancing and Assessing Materials for Environmental Sustainability (INFRAMES)

文明史通常用所使用的材料来描述：石器时代、青铜器时代、铁器时代、塑料时代和硅时代。材料塑造了我们的建筑和艺术、交通、服装、我们利用能源、生产和储存食物的方式，以及最近从电子到医药的技术。评估我们社会生产的材料的可持续性是一个全球性的挑战。这个AccelNet实施跟踪项目将环境纳米技术领域的大量投资汇集到一个致力于挑战的协调的国际研究人员社区中。INFRAMES包括来自18所美国大学的研究人员，这些大学与纳米技术的环境影响中心和可持续纳米技术中心有关，还有8个正在进行的欧洲网络（SAbyNa、Gracious、NanoCommons、RiskGONE、NanoInformaTIX、SERENADE、ACENano和Nanosafety Cluster），以及加纳的Kwame Nkrumah科技大学，以及4个国家6个同步加速器x射线设施的研究人员。框架框架为利用实验设施提供了便利，扩大了可获取的数据集，并形成了评价材料对环境和人类健康的潜在影响的共同基础。INFRAMES的活动将极大地扩展学生、博士后研究人员和早期职业研究人员的网络和职业道路，通过沉浸在国际融合科学的多元文化和创新体系中，通过国际实验室轮岗、网络研讨会和年度研讨会经验，开发协议和可互操作的信息平台和协作研究。这些举措将确保美国继续参与国际科学界在环保材料技术方面的尖端劳动力培训。INFRAMES将利用团队科学的跨界方法，建立和加强跨广泛专业知识的合作，共同创造融合方法，对材料相关挑战或应用进行评估。五个重点领域是：1)农业应用中养分和农药的颗粒输送系统；2)运输中使用的材料；3)资源回收和水处理先进材料；4)工程和附带的生物颗粒；5)微/纳米塑料的后果。除了由网络本身产生的社会基础设施和通信途径外，一套共享资源将促进协调，包括光谱和成像设施，用于复杂系统中颗粒材料研究的中观和生态毒性设施，新材料的信息学平台，以及预测环境中颗粒材料的命运，行为和影响的建模平台。INFRAMES将促进对表面相互作用、纳米生物行为和粒子转化的基本理解，并将加速美国在评估材料可持续性领域的研究活动。通过国际网络对网络合作加速研究（AccelNet）计划旨在加速科学发现的进程，并为下一代美国研究人员进行多团队国际合作做好准备。AccelNet项目支持美国研究网络与国外互补网络之间的战略联系，将利用研究和教育资源来应对需要重大国际协调努力的重大科学挑战。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 history of civilization is often described by the materials used: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Age of Plastics, and the Silicon Age. Materials shape our architecture and art, transportation, clothing, the way we harness energy, produce and store food, and, most recently, technologies from electronics to medicine. Assessing the sustainability of the materials our society produces is a global challenge. This AccelNet Implementation-Track project assembles substantial investments in the area of environmental nanotechnology into a coordinated international community of researchers dedicated to the challenge. INFRAMES includes researchers from eighteen U.S. universities associated with the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology and the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology along with eight on-going European networks (SAbyNa, Gracious, NanoCommons, RiskGONE, NanoInformaTIX, SERENADE, ACENano, and Nanosafety Cluster), and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, and researchers at six synchrotron X-ray facilities in four countries. INFRAMES provides facilitated access to experimental facilities, expansion of accessible data sets, and the evolution of a common basis for evaluating potential impacts of materials on the environment and human health. INFRAMES activities will vastly expand the network and career paths for students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career researchers by immersion in a diverse culture and innovative system of international convergence science, with international lab rotations, webinars and annual workshop experiences in development of protocols and interoperable informatics platforms and collaborative studies. These initiatives will ensure continued U.S. engagement and cutting-edge workforce training across the international scientific community in environmental materials technology.INFRAMES will draw on boundary-spanning methods from the science of team science to build and strengthen collaborations across broad range of expertise, co-creating convergent approaches to perform assessments on materials-related challenges or applications. The five focus areas are: 1) particle-based delivery systems for nutrients and pesticides in agricultural applications; 2) materials used in transportation; 3) advanced materials for resource recovery and water treatment; 4) engineered and incidental bio-particles; and 5) consequences of micro/nano plastics. In addition to the social infrastructures and communication pathways generated by the network itself, a suite of shared resources will facilitate coordination, including spectroscopy and imaging facilities, mesocosm and ecotoxicity facilities for the investigation of particulate materials in complex systems, informatics platforms for novel materials, and modeling platforms for predicting the fate, behavior, and impacts from particulate materials in the environment. INFRAMES will nurture fundamental advances in understanding of surface interactions, nano-bio behavior, and particle transformations and will accelerate U.S. research activities in the area of assessing the sustainability of materials. The Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) program is designed to accelerate the process of scientific discovery and prepare the next generation of U.S. researchers for multiteam international collaborations. The AccelNet program supports strategic linkages among U.S. research networks and complementary networks abroad that will leverage research and educational resources to tackle grand scientific challenges that require significant coordinated international efforts.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.