Multifunctional 2D Polymers and Hybrids via Crystal Engineering

该项目推动了结晶聚合物材料的制造，既促进了科学进步，也促进了国家繁荣。结晶作为一种材料加工技术，在当今的工业中被广泛用于制造精细化学品、药品和半导体。然而，在聚合物工程中，结晶用于加工目的的利用是有限的，因为控制聚合物结晶是具有挑战性的，而且更难生长聚合物单晶。最近的工作表明，基于聚合物单晶的二维聚合物和杂化材料在纳米粒子合成和图案化、表面增强拉曼光谱、人造纳米电机和催化剂载体等方面具有巨大的应用潜力。为了主要的商业应用，必须大规模生产均匀、功能和可控的二维聚合物单晶，这对社区来说是一个重大挑战。本项目开发了两个处理平台：连续蒸发溶液结晶和蒸发界面结晶，以生产满足这一挑战的聚合物晶体。该项目的教育部分包括开发班级模块，指导研究生和本科生，并让高中生参与研究活动。这项研究的主要目标是开发一种通用的加工方法来合成聚合物单晶基、二维聚合物和杂化聚合物。主要研究工作包括：1)开发同晶和异晶种子库，以控制聚合物单晶的尺寸和尺寸分布；2)利用连续蒸发溶液结晶法提高聚合物单晶的生长产率；3)开发蒸发界面结晶法生长晶片尺寸的二维聚合物单晶；4)更好地了解多组分、端面不同的聚合物的生长控制，以获得具有纳米级化学非均质性的二维聚合物单晶。预计这种精细的形态控制直接导致具有受控纳米颗粒类型、负载和空间分布的二维杂化，这对于它们在催化、纳米电机和纳米颗粒构图中的预期应用至关重要。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。

This project advances the manufacture of crystalline polymer materials, promoting both the progress of science and advancing national prosperity. Crystallization as a materials processing technique is widely used in today's industry to manufacture fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. However, in polymer engineering, the utilization of crystallization for processing purposes is limited because it is challenging to control polymer crystallization and even more difficult to grow polymer single crystals. Recent work demonstrated that polymer single crystals-based two dimensional polymers and hybrids have great potential in applications such as nanoparticle synthesis and patterning, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, artificial nanomotors and catalyst support. Uniform, functional, and controllable two-dimensional polymer single crystals must be produced at large scale for principal commercial applications, which is a major challenge to the community. This project develops two processing platforms called continuous evaporative solution crystallization and evaporative interface crystallization to produce these polymer crystals meet this challenge. The educational component of the project includes developing class modules, mentoring graduate and undergraduate students, and involving high school students in the research activities. The overarching goal of this research is developing a versatile processing approach to synthesize polymer single crystal-based, two dimensional polymers and hybrids. The major research activities of the work include: 1) Developing a library of homo-crystal and hetero-crystal seeds to control the polymer single crystal size and size distribution; 2) Improving the yield of polymer single crystal growth using a continuous evaporative solution crystallization method; 3) Developing an evaporative interface crystallization method to grow wafer-size two dimensional polymer single crystals; 4) Better understanding the growth control of multi-component, end-dissimilar polymers in order to achieve two dimensional polymer single crystals with nanoscale chemical heterogeneity. It is anticipated that such an exquisite morphological control directly leads to two dimensional hybrids with controlled nanoparticle type, loading, and spatial distribution, which are critical for their intended applications in catalysis, nanomotors and nanoparticle patterning.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.