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

文明史通常用材料来描述：石器时代、青铜时代、铁器时代、塑料时代和硅器时代。材料塑造了我们的建筑和艺术、交通、服装、我们利用能源的方式、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项全球性的挑战。这一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这一挑战的协调的国际研究人员社区中。INFRAMES包括与纳米技术的环境影响中心和可持续纳米技术中心有关联的18所美国大学的研究人员，以及8个正在进行的欧洲网络(SAbyNa、Gracious、NanoCommons、RiskGONE、NanoInformaTIX、小夜曲、ACENano和Nanosafty Cluk)和加纳夸梅·恩克鲁马科技大学的研究人员，以及4个国家的6个同步加速器X射线设施的研究人员。INFRAMES为实验设施的使用提供便利，扩大可访问的数据集，并发展评估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、博士后研究人员和职业生涯早期研究人员的网络和职业道路，方法是沉浸在国际融合科学的多元文化和创新体系中，通过国际实验室轮换、网络研讨会和年度研讨会经验来开发协议和可互操作的信息学平台和协作研究。这些计划将确保美国在环境材料技术方面的持续参与和国际科学界的尖端劳动力培训。INFRAMES将借鉴团队科学的跨国界方法，在广泛的专业知识领域建立和加强合作，共同创建融合的方法，以执行与材料相关的挑战或应用评估。五个重点领域是：1)农业应用中的营养素和农药的颗粒输送系统；2)运输中使用的材料；3)资源回收和水处理的先进材料；4)工程和附带的生物颗粒；以及5)微/纳米塑料的后果。除了网络本身产生的社会基础设施和通信路径外，一套共享资源将促进协调，包括光谱和成像设施、用于研究复杂系统中的颗粒材料的介观和生态毒性设施、用于新型材料的信息学平台，以及用于预测环境中颗粒材料的命运、行为和影响的建模平台。INFRAMES将促进在理解表面相互作用、纳米生物行为和粒子转化方面的根本性进展，并将促进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)计划旨在加快科学发现的进程，并为多团队国际合作培养下一代美国研究人员。AccelNet计划支持美国研究网络和海外互补网络之间的战略联系，这些网络将利用研究和教育资源来应对需要大量国际协调努力的重大科学挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.