CAREER: Manufacturing of Solid Particle-Liquid Metal Mixtures for Soft Robotics and Stretchable Electronics

职业：制造用于软机器人和可拉伸电子产品的固体颗粒-液体金属混合物

• 批准号: 2339780
• 负责人: Eric Markvicka
• 金额: $ 69.18万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-08-01 至 2029-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2339780&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Manufacturing; Solid; Particle; Liquid

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant establishes a scalable manufacturing approach for incorporating diverse solid particle additives into room temperature liquid metals by controlling their reactivity and wetting characteristics through an interfacial engineering approach. This work provides new fundamental knowledge that enables the creation of a novel class of multiphase conductive pastes with customizable physical, rheological, and chemical properties. The enhanced properties increase the suitability of using liquid metal pastes for extrusion-based three-dimensional (3D) printing and lead to new applications in soft robotics and stretchable electronics, which contribute to the economic and societal advancement of U.S. manufacturing. The solid particle-liquid metal mixtures are suitable materials for additive manufacturing of a variety of applications such as control systems, soft matter actuators, and distributed sensors. The research is complemented by new learning modules that seek to actively engage students across the educational spectrum by integrating entrepreneurial literacy with research-based activities focused on additive manufacturing, materials processing, and digital modeling. These modules are delivered through local programs and via a mobile science lab to schools and teachers across Nebraska and elsewhere to enhance classroom learning for ethnically, geographically, and socio-economically diverse students. The goal of this research is to establish a universal strategy for incorporating solid particle additives into liquid metals to enhance their physical and rheological properties without compromising their fluidic attributes. Typically, the solid particle additive is a metal such as nickel, tungsten, or copper and the liquid metal is gallium or its compounds. The high reactivity and cohesive energy of gallium-based liquid metals offer challenges at the solid-liquid interface, which are overcome through an interfacial engineering approach where an intermediate layer is introduced to concurrently act as a corrosion barrier and wetting agent. The solid particle-liquid metal mixtures are created by mixing via mechanical shear under controlled conditions. The physical properties, rheological behavior, and chemical stability are subsequently characterized to establish the process-property-performance relationships to understand how the particle composition, volume loading, and size affect the properties and performance of the particle-liquid metal mixtures. The improved properties, enhanced chemical stability, and ability to pattern structures in three-dimensions enable particle-liquid metal mixtures to take a range of forms, from discrete inclusions in composite materials to patterned liquid networks. This research enables the design and manufacturing of materials and structures tailored for soft structures, devices and systems inspired by biology.This project is jointly funded by the Advanced Manufacturing (AM) Program, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division.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.

这项教师早期职业发展（职业）赠款建立了一种可扩展的制造方法，可通过通过界面工程方法控制其反应性和润湿特性，将各种固体颗粒添加剂融入室温液体金属中。这项工作提供了新的基本知识，以创建具有可自定义的物理，流变和化学特性的新型多相导电糊。增强的性质提高了使用液体金属糊状物进行基于挤出的三维（3D）印刷的适用性，并导致了软机器人和可拉伸电子产品的新应用，这有助于美国制造的经济和社会发展。固体颗粒液金属混合物是适合各种应用的添加剂制造的材料，例如控制系统，软物质执行器和分布式传感器。这项研究与新的学习模块相辅相成，这些模块试图通过将企业家素养与侧重于添加剂制造，材料处理和数字建模的基于研究的活动相结合，以积极吸引学生的教育范围。这些模块是通过本地计划和移动科学实验室提供给内布拉斯加州和其他地方的学校和教师的，以增强种族，地理和社会经济多样的学生的课堂学习。这项研究的目的是建立一种通用策略，将固体颗粒添加剂掺入液体金属中，以增强其物理和流变学特性，而不会损害其液体属性。通常，固体颗粒添加剂是金属，例如镍，钨或铜，液态金属是镀凝剂或其化合物。基于凝胶的液体金属的高反应性和粘性能在固定液体界面上提供了挑战，该界面通过界面工程方法克服，在该方法中，引入了中间层以同时充当腐蚀屏障和润湿剂。通过在受控条件下通过机械剪切混合而产生固体颗粒液金属混合物。随后，将物理性质，流变行为和化学稳定性表征为建立过程 - 绩效 - 性能关系，以了解粒子组成，体积加载和大小如何影响粒子 - 液体金属混合物的性质和性能。改进的性质，增强的化学稳定性以及在三维中对结构进行模式的能力，使颗粒液的金属混合物能够采取一系列形式，从复合材料的离散包含物到图案化的液体网络。这项研究使设计和制造量身定制了针对生物学启发的软结构，设备和系统量身定制的材料和结构。该项目由先进的制造计划（AM）计划，启发竞争性研究（EPSCOR）的既定计划（AM）共同资助，以及由公民，机械和制造业的奖项，通过评估NSF的Internition deem deem deem deem deem deem deem deem evernial的奖项，以表现出来。和更广泛的影响审查标准。