FMSG: Bio: Interface-Directed Manufacturing of Piezoelectric Biocrystal Thin Films

环境管理和可持续性是未来制造业的主要考虑因素。可再生、生物兼容、可降解和自然衍生的生物材料在能源和电子相关的广泛领域开始显示出巨大的前景。在众多候选材料中，作为生命最基本组成部分的氨基酸表现出了耐人寻味的性质，使其适合应用于半导体器件、能源转换和可持续电子产品。为了实现这些承诺，需要新的方法来使氨基酸薄膜能够在可制造的系统中连续生长。该团队最近的一项突破表明，在聚合物和水溶液之间的特殊界面引导下，可以连续生产高质量的氨基酸生物晶体薄膜。因此，未来制造种子资助(FMSG)项目寻求对混合材料相互作用的基本了解，以便了解是什么控制了连续聚合物挤出系统中的聚合物-水界面，以及混合物如何反过来控制氨基酸晶体的形成及其性质。从这个项目中获得的知识可能会对用氨基酸及其衍生物制造生物晶体薄膜产生变革，并允许创造出用现有制造技术无法实现的结构。该项目的发现和创新将催化一种新的界面引导的生物晶体薄膜制造技术，为生态友好和生物兼容的电子和能源设备提供一种新的材料范例。该项目的目标是获得基础知识，使其能够在一个可制造的系统中从静态的界面引导的氨基酸结晶过渡到动态和连续的沉淀过程。为了实现这一目标，该团队将开发一种新的设备，用于连续生产聚合物-水两相薄膜。实验和计算方法将结合起来，以了解和预测水-聚合物体系在连续冷却过程中的动态条件。这些条件将被用来研究氨基酸晶体的连续结晶动力学，并解释水-聚合物界面作为关键控制因素的作用。此外，氨基酸晶体薄膜的压电性能将被量化为薄膜质量评估的基准。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。

Environmental stewardship and sustainability are major considerations for future manufacturing. Renewable, biocompatible, degradable, and nature-derived biomaterials are beginning to show great promise in a wide range of energy- and electronics-related areas. Among many material candidates, amino acids, the most basic building blocks of life, have shown intriguing properties which could make them suitable for application in semiconductor devices, energy conversion, and sustainable electronics. To realize these promises, new methods are needed to enable continuous growth of amino acid films in a manufacturing-ready system. A recent breakthrough by the team suggests that high-quality amino acid biocrystal films may be continuously produced when guided by a special interface between a polymer and a water solution. Therefore, this Future Manufacturing Seed Grant (FMSG) project seeks fundamental understanding of the interactions of the mixed materials in order to understand what controls the polymer-water interfaces in a continuous polymer extrusion system, and how the mixture in turn controls amino acid crystal formation and its properties. Knowledge obtained from this project may be transformative to the manufacturing of biocrystal thin films from amino acids and their derivatives and allow creation of structures which are otherwise unachievable by existing manufacturing techniques. Discoveries and innovations from this project will catalyze a new interface-guided manufacturing technique for biocrystal thin films, enabling a novel material paradigm for eco-friendly and biocompatible electronics and energy devices.The objective of this project is to obtain fundamental knowledge that enables transition from a static interface-guided crystallization of amino acids to a dynamic and continuous precipitation process in a manufacturing-ready system. To achieve this objective, the team will develop a new apparatus for continuously producing polymer-water bi-phase films. Experimental and computational methods will be combined to understand and predict the dynamic conditions of the water-polymer system during continuous cooling. These conditions will be used to study the continuous crystallization kinetics of amino acid crystals and explain the role of the water-polymer interface as a key controlling factor. In addition, the piezoelectric properties of amino acid crystal films, which allow conversion of mechanical energy into electricity, will be quantified as a benchmark for film quality evaluation.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.