CAREER: Integrating Research and Education via Low-Temperature Solventless Formation of Hierarchical Porous-on-Porous Materials

这笔学院早期职业发展(Career)补助金提供资金，用于开发一种新技术，将功能性多孔聚合物沉积到多孔材料上，以开发用于疾病检测的微流体设备和用于净水的多功能滤膜。这项研究的主要目标是确定使用显著降低的衬底温度以同时冻结和聚合单体的相关机理和动力学，从而形成新型的多孔性材料。该研究的方法是系统地评估工艺参数对孔径分布的影响，调查无盖和有盖的膜的形成，确定局部冷却是否可以控制x、y和z方向的孔的形成，并利用新发现的控制这些膜的对称性、表面化学和结构的含义来创造创新的、真实世界的多孔材料。如果成功，这项研究的结果将导致对与低温沉积聚合物膜相关的化学和物理的基本理解，并最终制造下一代诊断装置和净化膜。将开展一系列动手演示，以点燃洛杉矶市中心中学生对工程领域的兴趣，这些学生很少接触到这样的话题。将通过将女学生与女教师配对来创建一个新的多层次导师计划，以促进职业发展并帮助留住工程领域的女性。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant provides funding for the development of a new technique to deposit functional porous polymers onto porous materials in order to develop microfluidic devices for disease detection and multifunctional filtration membranes for water purification. The primary objective of this research is to determine the mechanism and kinetics associated with using significantly reduced substrate temperatures in order to simultaneously freeze and polymerize monomer, leading to the formation of novel porous-on-porous materials. The research approach is to systematically evaluate the effects of process parameters on the pore size distribution, investigate the formation of both uncapped and capped membranes, determine whether localized cooling can control pore formation in the x, y, and z-directions, and utilize the new-found implications of controlling the symmetry, surface chemistry, and structure of these membranes to create innovative, real-world multifunctional porous-on-porous materials.If successful, the results of this research will lead to a fundamental understanding of the chemistry and physics associated with low-temperature deposition of polymer membranes, and ultimately the fabrication of next-generation diagnostic devices and purification membranes. A series of hands-on demonstrations will be developed to ignite interest in engineering fields among middle school students in downtown Los Angeles that rarely have access to such topics. A new multi-tiered mentorship program will be created by pairing female students with female faculty in order to foster career development and help improve the retention of women in engineering fields.