SEES Fellows: Synthesis of a New Class of Thermostable Proton Conducting Materials to Enable High Efficiency Hydrogen Fuel Cells

该项目由美国国家科学基金会科学、工程和教育可持续发展研究员（SEES研究员）计划支持，其目标是帮助实现必要的发现，为导致环境、能源和社会可持续发展的行动提供信息，同时创造必要的劳动力来应对这些挑战。可持续发展科学是一个新兴的领域，它解决了在不损害环境的情况下满足人类需求的挑战，同时又不牺牲后代满足其需求的能力。一支强大的科学队伍需要在跨学科研究和思维方面受过教育和训练的个人，特别是在可持续性科学领域。在SEES奖学金的支持下，该项目将使有前途的早期职业研究人员能够在与可持续发展相关的独立研究生涯中建立自己。这个see奖学金项目的重点是开发可持续的汽车替代燃料。该项目的合作伙伴关系和活动将扩大研究的范围，并有助于促进PI的职业发展。例如，华纳巴布科克研究所带来了可持续创新商业化的专业知识；Eric Beckman将提供生命周期评估的知识，Beyond Benign将帮助K-12的推广。PI将教授一门关于绿色化学的课程，并领导一个关于该主题的夏季模块，作为少数族裔学生暑期桥梁项目的一部分。该项目的科学核心是创造高效燃料电池的新材料。国内汽车用汽油的生产和燃烧仍然是全球碳排放的来源和化石燃料需求的驱动因素。对大气中碳含量的长期控制需要商业实施无污染的替代技术，这些技术依赖于现成的可再生燃料来源。该项目的重点是创造新的聚合物电解质膜（PEMs），这将使可行的汽车氢燃料电池的发展成为可能。该项目包括用于汽车燃料电池的质子导电膜的聚（间苯氧化物）的合成、表征和潜在商业化。聚对苯基氧化物（PPO）的磺化已经产生了与杜邦国家类似的质子导电性材料，但磺化的PPO或相关聚合物PES和PEEK用于燃料电池的可行性受到限制，因为它们易于氧化降解。宿主导师实验室最近的研究阐明了一种新的途径，即通过SNAr阶梯生长机制生成氧化性更强的元连接芳基醚。随着这些聚（间苯氧化物）第一次容易获得，PI建议创建磺化，羧化，烷基化和碱性残留物标记的聚（间苯氧化物），以优化这些材料的结构，并测量和最大化它们在燃料电池中应用的离子传导能力。两种廉价的可功能化单体，1,3-二酚（一种生物可再生原料）和1,3-苯二卤化物（或杂芳香类似物）的共聚合提供了以最小的合成努力和浪费轻松合并多个官能团的机会。为了评估这些材料在商业应用中的工业可行性，PI将进行生命周期和市场分析。由PI/SEES研究员和本科生在主导师的实验室进行的研究将包括功能化聚（间苯氧化物）的合成和光谱/材料分析，例如测量热稳定性和相变行为。与合作伙伴导师的合作将侧重于更复杂的材料和应用分析，如离子传导测量，氧化稳定性，化学降解途径和膜制备。拟议的活动包括在有机合成和聚合物化学方面的高影响力研究，通过以可持续的方式创造材料，可用于社会推动更清洁的燃料来源。PI将寻求将这项研究传达给科学界、工业界、K-12学生、本科生和公众。科尔比学院热衷于招收和留住一个种族和民族多样化的学生群体，特别是在科学领域。由于认识到早期和持续的研究活动对学生在科学领域的职业道路有积极的影响，科尔比学院的教师创建了科尔比科学成就项目（CAPS），这是一个基于研究的暑期桥梁项目，面向非洲裔美国人、拉丁裔美国人和印第安人背景的一年级新生。夏季项目在第一年之前的夏季将课程和研究直接与教师结合起来，并培养与入学后坚持的教师和工作人员的关系。该项目采用为期一周的专题研究模块的形式，由教师与整个CAPS班一起进行。在资助期间，PI将领导绿色化学模块，作为CAPS计划的一部分，并在学期中教授同一主题的高级课程。PI将通过与Beyond Benign合作开展K-12和公共宣传，进一步扩大工作范围。为了吸引更多的公众，PI将寻求帮助学生在当地报纸上发表他们为课堂写的关于绿色化学原理在当地商界被采用的故事。

This project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. Sustainability science is an emerging field that addresses the challenges of meeting human needs without harm to the environment, and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. A strong scientific workforce requires individuals educated and trained in interdisciplinary research and thinking, especially in the area of sustainability science. With the SEES Fellowship support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish herself in an independent research career related to sustainability. This SEES Fellowship project focuses on the development of sustainable alternative fuels for automobiles. Partnerships and activities in this project will broaden the reach of the research and help advance the PI's career development. For example, the Warner Babcock Institute brings expertise with commercialization of sustainable innovation; Eric Beckman will provide knowledge of life cycle assessment, and Beyond Benign will help with K-12 outreach. The PI will teach a course on green chemistry as well as lead a summer module on the subject as part of a summer bridge program for underrepresented minority students.The scientific core of the project is on the creation of new materials for high-efficiency fuel cells. The production and combustion of gasoline for use in domestic automobiles continues to be a worldwide source of global carbon emissions and driver of fossil fuel demand. Long term controls on atmospheric carbon levels will require the commercial implementation of nonpolluting alternative technologies that rely on readily available and renewable fuel sources. This project is focused on the creation of new polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) that will enable the development of viable automotive hydrogen fuel cells. The project includes synthesis, characterization, and potential commercialization of poly(meta-phenylene oxides) for use as proton conducting membranes in automotive fuel cells. Sulfonation of poly(para-phenylene oxides) (PPO) has yielded materials with proton conductivties similar to Dupont's nafion, but the viability of sulfonated PPO or the related polymers PES and PEEK for fuel cell applications is limited due to their susceptibility to oxidative degradation. Recent research in the host mentor's lab elucidated a novel route to more oxidatively robust meta-linked aryl ethers via an SNAr step-growth mechanism. With these poly(meta-phenylene oxides) now readily available for the first time, the PI proposes to create sulfonated, carboxylated, alkylated, and basic-residue-tagged poly(meta-phenylene oxides), to optimize the construction of such materials, and to measure and maximize their ion conduction capacity for application in fuel cells. The co-polymerization of two inexpensive, functionalizable monomers, a 1,3-diphenol (a biorenewable feedstock) and a 1,3-benzenedihalide (or heteroaromatic analogue) presents the opportunity to easily incorporate multiple functional groups with minimal synthetic effort and waste. In order to evaluate the industrial viability of these materials for commercial application, the PI will perform life cycle and market analyses.Research by the PI/SEES Fellow and undergraduate students in the host mentor's lab would entail synthesis of functionalized poly(meta-phenylene oxides) and spectroscopic/materials analysis, such as measuring thermal stability and phase transition behavior. Collaboration with the partner mentor will focus on more sophisticated materials and applications analyses, such as ion conduction measurements, oxidative stability, chemical degradation pathways, and membrane preparation. The proposed activities include high impact research in organic synthesis and polymer chemistry by creating materials in a sustainable way that can be used in society's push for cleaner fuel sources. The PI will seek to communicate this research to the scientific community, industry, K-12 students, undergraduate and public audiences.Colby College is keen to recruit and retain a racially and ethnically diverse student body, especially within the sciences. With the understanding that early and continued research activities positively influence students to follow career paths in science, faculty at Colby created the Colby Achievement Program in Sciences (CAPS), a research-based summer bridge program for incoming first-year students of African American, Latino/a, and Native American backgrounds. The summer program combines coursework and research directly with faculty in the summer before the first year, and fosters relationships with faculty and staff that persist upon matriculation. The program takes the form of thematic 1-week research modules conducted by faculty with the entire CAPS class. During the grant period, the PI will lead a green chemistry module as part of the CAPS program, as well as teach an upper-level course on the same subject during the academic semester. The PI would further broaden the reach of the work by partnering with Beyond Benign for K-12 and public outreach. In order to engage a larger public audience, the PI will seek to help students publish in local newspapers stories that they write for class about principles of green chemistry being adopted in the local business community.