CCI Phase I: NSF Center for Interfacial Ionics

美国国家科学基金会界面离子中心(CI2)由化学部化学创新中心(CCI)项目支持。CI2的工作是在电化学--即电池设计、腐蚀控制(生锈)、可再生碳中性氢和液体燃料的生产、碳捕获技术以及生物学(例如，神经系统)中信息的传输和处理的基础上的科学。虽然电化学本质上耦合离子(带正电荷或带负电荷的原子或分子)和电子的运动，但通常只有电子的流动才能通过实验(如电流)来测量。这导致了一个“以电子为中心”的概念基础，而不是以最佳方式支持受离子运动方式限制的电化学技术的设计。NSF CI2将通过建立精确的平台来测量离子速度，发明和应用最先进的分析来理解分子长度尺度的机制，并使用计算机模拟来解释实验结果和建立改进的理论模型，来解决离子如何在界面上移动的这一基础科学鸿沟。这项工作有望提供一门新的界面离子学基础科学，为社会发明新的电化学技术提供信息。科学努力利用研究密集型、主要是本科生和少数群体服务机构的多样化团队，协同创建可持续的STEM多样性管道。在教育方面，CI2将成为创造基础电化学知识的旗手，塑造下一代了解对人类繁荣至关重要的技术的电化学科学的多样化领导者，并通过接受过有效的技术和非技术科学传播技术培训的学生和研究人员传播吸引公众的主题。创新和创业培训紧密嵌入研究平台中，以促进将科学转化为商业产品以产生社会影响。界面离子中心(CI2)有可能通过将分子可调界面上的新测量与理论和计算的进步结合起来，揭示对科学和技术产生广泛影响的准确的界面离子转移(IIT)理论，从而彻底改变对界面离子转移(IIT)动力学的理解。技术科学工作集中于三个目标：(I)发展IIT的分子科学，将液/液连接处的干净测量和易处理的理论与与技术相关的固/液连接连接起来；(Ii)探索和调整自由能格局，以了解如何在液/液和固/液连接处催化IIT，以及(Iii)通过IIT催化，通过控制界面吸收的中间体和溶剂化/去溶化动力学势垒来加速IIT。CI2的目标成果是：(I)证明从定义明确的液/液界面的IIT研究中得出的基本性质与技术上相关的固/液和固/固界面相关，(Ii)第一个IIT理论，它利用来自实验和来自模型系统的分子模拟的数据，并将IIT的复杂性浓缩为能够广泛进行定量预测的简单公式，以及(Iii)IIT催化剂的设计和演示。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 NSF Center for Interfacial Ionics (CI2) is supported by the Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) Program in the Division of Chemistry. The work in CI2 is in electrochemistry – i.e., the science that underlies the design of batteries, control of corrosion (rusting), production of renewable carbon-neutral hydrogen and liquid fuels, carbon-capture technologies, and the transmission and processing of information in biology (for example, in the nervous system). Although electrochemistry inherently couples the motion of ions (atoms or molecules with positive or negative charge) and electrons, it is typically only the flow of electrons that is measured by experiments (as electrical current). This has resulted in an ‘electron-centric’ conceptual foundation that does not optimally support the design of electrochemical technologies that are limited by how ions move. The NSF CI2 will address this basic-science gap of how ions move across interfaces by building precise platforms to measure ion speeds, inventing and applying state-of-the-art analytics to understand mechanisms at molecular length scales, and using computer simulations to interpret experimental results and build improved theoretical models. This work is expected to provide a renewed foundational science of interfacial ionics that will inform the invention of new electrochemical technologies for society. The science effort leverages a diverse team of research-intensive and primarily undergraduate and minority-serving institutions to synergistically create a sustainable STEM diversity pipeline. In education, CI2 will be a flagbearer for fundamental electrochemical knowledge creation, mold the next generation of diverse leaders in the electrochemical sciences that underly technologies critical for the prosperity of humanity, and disseminate topics that engage the public via students and researchers specifically trained in effective technical and non-technical science communication techniques. Innovation and entrepreneurship training are tightly embedded in the research platform to facilitate translation of the science to commercial products for societal impact.The Center for Interfacial Ionics (CI2) has the potential to revolutionize the understanding of interfacial-ion-transfer (IIT) kinetics by coupling new measurements on molecularly tunable interfaces with advances in theory and computation to uncover accurate IIT theories of broad impact in science and technology. The technical science effort focuses on three aims: (i) developing a molecular science of IIT that connects clean measurements and tractable theory at liquid/liquid junctions to technology-relevant solid/liquid junctions, (ii) probing and tuning the free-energy landscape to understand how to catalyze IIT at liquid/liquid and solid/liquid junctions, and (iii) accelerating IIT through IIT catalysis by controlling interface-absorbed intermediates and solvation/desolvation kinetic barriers. The target outcomes of CI2 are: (i) a demonstration that the fundamental properties derived from IIT studies of well-defined liquid/liquid interfaces correlate with technologically relevant solid/liquid and solid/solid interfaces, (ii) the first IIT theory that leverages data from experiment and molecular simulations from model systems and condenses the complexity of IIT to simple formulations broadly enabling quantitative prediction, and (iii) the design and demonstration of IIT catalysts.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.