REU Site: Polymer Innovation for a Sustainable Future

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Non-technical summaryJointly funded by the Division of Materials Research and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), the University of Southern Mississippi will host a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site supporting ten undergraduate students from across the U.S. in a ten-week immersive research program targeting sustainable approaches in materials development to meet critical societal needs. The students in the REU Site: Polymer Innovation for a Sustainable Future work side by side with graduate students and faculty in state-of-the-art polymer science and engineering laboratories to gain skills in fundamental research while addressing challenges including reducing plastic pollution through development of recyclable and degradable plastics, creating sustainable materials from bio-polymers, and designing new materials for water purification. Students are exposed to materials manufacturing challenges and career opportunities in science and engineering through field trips to local industry and national laboratories. They build interdisciplinary communication and team-building skills through participative workshops and outreach to the community. The program broadens participation in science and engineering by recruiting students from primarily undergraduate institutions, community colleges, and minority-serving institutions, focusing on students from the freshman and sophomore years. The REU is designed to help develop the next generation of science and engineering researchers by attracting students from diverse backgrounds, developing interdisciplinary research skills, and encouraging them to pursue advanced degrees in STEM.Technical summaryThe grand challenges of the 21st century require new and sustainable approaches to materials development. Scientists must work in increasingly complex, interdisciplinary teams that address not only the technical challenges but also the environmental and global impacts of their research. The REU Site: Polymer Innovation for a Sustainable Future is focused on sustainable approaches to materials development to address critical societal needs. Undergraduate researchers are engaged in fundamental materials research efforts that span the complex, interdisciplinary facets of materials sustainability, including design of materials for recyclability and degradability, synthesis of polymers from renewable feedstocks, enhancing process efficiency, and designing polymers for renewable energy applications, while gaining the tools to assess the environmental impact of new material development. The research is organized into three themes. Theme 1, Design for Recyclability and Degradability, includes the design of bio-derived bisphenols to create thermosets with degradable moieties; utilization of keratin biomass to create uv-cured composites; and upcycling of plastic waste through reactive extrusion. Theme 2, Sustainable Polymers: (Bio) Renewable Feedstocks, includes design of lignin based high temperature polymer composites, and creation of antimicrobial chitosan nanocomposites. Theme 3, Materials for Sustainable Energy and Water Purification, includes integrated high-throughput experiments with data science techniques to design flexible electronics, and surface modification to create fouling resistant hydrophobic polymer membranes for water purification. REU students gain hands-on research experience, participate in lectures and seminars in sustainable materials, and learn to communicate the results or their research to different audiences, including middle school students, faculty from polymer science and engineering, biology, and chemistry backgrounds, and NSF/NIH program managers.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.