BRITE Relaunch: A Liquid Phase Process for Graphene Manufacturing

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。 富勒烯、碳纳米管和最近的石墨烯由于其特殊的化学、光学、磁性和机械性能而引起了人们的极大兴趣。 无论是保护金属免受腐蚀，还是实现下一代轻质和坚固的塑料，这些新的碳材料都有望实现一个更绿色，更可持续的社会。 为了充分利用这些系统，需要对其制造采取变革性的方法。研究人员用于制造这些特殊碳的效率低下且消耗能源的技术虽然适合实验室，但不适合将其转化为广泛商业用途所需的大规模和可持续生产。 这个促进工程变革和公平进步的研究思路（BRITE）重新启动奖利用了最近的一项发现，该发现将支持在相对较低的温度下制造石墨烯，并将应用这种先进的制造技术，以形成形状复杂的磁性聚合物以及多孔碳海绵。 这种海绵是用于从污染的水中去除废物的优良的散装材料。 这一努力将为迅速发展的石墨烯产业提供另一种制造途径，并为研究生和本科生提供密集的研究培训，旨在提高工程专业STEM本科生的保留率。 它还支持为工程师开发可持续材料教育，为评估制造过程的整体影响提供定量框架。本工作的研究目标集中在开发和优化液相法形成碳材料。 该项目通过直接在液相工艺中形成碳材料来应对这一挑战，这与制造特种聚合物的工艺非常相似。 该方法利用了最近的发现，即氧化铁的细粉可以催化碳纳米材料的形成。 通过检测反应过程，实时信息将导致具有定制格式和特性的材料的有效形成。 将开发控制算法，用于使用该实时信息优化制造。这也将创造关于石墨烯如何在溶液环境中形成的新知识。 石墨烯的形成将首先发生在纳米颗粒上，然后是多孔结构和2D石墨烯片。 形成的磁性碳也将与聚合物混合，采用三维打印的增材制造方法形成成形永磁体。 这些碳的其他形式，如多孔海绵和薄膜，将被应用于水处理和透明电子产品的问题。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Remarkable materials can be engineered from carbon. Fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and most recently graphene have garnered huge interest due to their special chemical, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. Whether it is protecting metals from corrosion or enabling the next generation of lightweight and strong plastics, these new carbon materials are poised to enable a greener and more sustainable society. To fully exploit these systems requires transformative approaches to their manufacturing. The highly inefficient and energy consuming techniques used by researchers to make these special carbons, while adequate for the laboratory, are poorly suited to the large scale and sustainable production needed to translate them to widespread commercial use. This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Relaunch award capitalizes on a recent discovery that will support the manufacturing of graphene at relatively low temperatures, and it will apply this advanced manufacturing technique in order to form intricately shaped magnetic polymers as well as porous carbon sponges. Such sponges are excellent bulk materials for removing waste materials from contaminated water. This effort will offer an alternative manufacturing route to the rapidly expanding graphene industry and provide intensive research training for graduate students and undergraduates alike, with efforts aimed at increasing the retention of STEM undergraduates in engineering. It also supports the development of sustainable materials education for engineers, providing a quantitative framework for assessing the overall impact of a manufacturing process. The research goals in this work center on the development and optimization of a liquid phase process for forming carbon materials. This project tackles this challenge by forming carbon materials directly in a liquid phase process, much like processes used to make specialty polymers. The method exploits the recent discovery that a fine powder of iron oxide can catalyze formation of carbon nanomaterials. By instrumenting the reaction process, real-time information will result in the efficient formation of materials with tailored formats and properties. Control algorithms will be developed for optimized manufacturing using this real-time information. This will also create new knowledge about how graphene forms within a solution environment. Graphene formation will first occur on nanoparticles, followed by porous structures and 2D graphene sheets. The magnetic carbons formed will also be blended with polymers in an additive manufacturing approach using three-dimensional printing to form shaped permanent magnets. Other formats of these carbons, such as porous sponges and thin films, will be applied to problems in water treatment and transparent electronics.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.