BRITE Relaunch: Realizing the Benefits of Additive Manufacturing for the Microstructural Control of Polymer Material Systems

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This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Relaunch project will provide knowledge that will solve critical engineering problems on the topic of reusable polymeric materials. The work promises to improve reliability of materials for biomedical applications and enable cost-effective water purification solutions. Central to the success of this project is a new materials design approach involving 3D printing that will be used to create plastic materials that can be easily healed when damaged. The project will be performed at a minority-serving institution, providing equitable and inclusive research and educational opportunities for groups underrepresented in STEM fields. This project will also spearhead the Polymer Pathways Program, an outreach and education effort that will be geared towards the local K-12 population of El Paso, Texas which has a poverty rate greater than the national average and a demographic that is over 80% Hispanic. A central goal is to change attitudes pertaining to plastic materials from that of “use and throw away” to that of “use, heal, reuse.”The overarching goal of this project is to change the paradigm of polymer materials from disposable to reusable through additive manufacturing-enabled microstructural control. This microstructural control will be used to tune the shape memory and self-healing properties of polymer systems. This project will utilize a materials design concept dubbed “quasi-self-assembly” where the morphology of polymer phases is manipulated by the additive manufacturing process of fused filament fabrication. This project will build upon prior discoveries made by the PI which have documented that phase alignment in multi-constituent polymer blends has an influence on shape memory performance. Two main categories of materials will be used in this study; biocompatible polymers and polymers that can be manipulated into ion exchange membranes by way of a facile chemical process that functionalizes styrenic blocks. The knowledge generated by this project will provide engineering foundations for future impacts on a single materials design approach.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.