LEAP HI: Manufacturing USA: Energy Efficient Processing of Thermoset Polymers and Composites

这个“美国繁荣、健康和基础设施领先工程”（LEAP-HI）项目有望大幅降低制造高强度复合材料的成本。生命系统实现形式和功能的方式与现代制造业几乎没有什么相似之处：想想手的手指，叶子的脉络，或者蒲公英的种子随风传播。以自然为模型，该研究将开发一种新技术，用于塑料和复合材料的加工，这些材料是飞机、汽车和风力涡轮机叶片等结构中的关键元件，需要轻质和高强度。目前这些材料的制造成本很高，需要大量的能源。从生命系统中汲取灵感，这个基础研究项目将产生新的塑料材料，只需要很小的初始能量输入就可以触发整个制造过程，并大大减少对环境的影响。这种新的、更有效的方法具有巨大的潜力，可以影响并显著提高美国在复合材料制造关键领域的经济竞争力。该奖项将支持高度协作的跨学科研究，以开发基于自催化（自传播）聚合反应的结构聚合物和复合材料的新制造平台，该反应发生在其组分的反应和扩散系统中。该系统利用放热释放的能量为反应提供正反馈。反过来，这又刺激了进一步的放热能量释放，以及快速穿过材料的自传播反应锋。这个过程叫做正面聚合。一旦触发，反应以零能量输入进行。反应波在材料中的自我持续传播产生了全新的制造高性能复合材料的方法，使用快速，节能的方法，大大降低了成本，包括热固性聚合物和复合材料的3D打印。通过简单的热扰动控制反应波会产生对称破缺事件，从而能够形成复杂的、涌现的（形态发生）图案。此外，我们以生物为灵感的制造理念为激励和教育下一代企业家、学生、博士后研究人员以及公众提供了一个理想的平台。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Leading Engineering for America's Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP-HI) project promises to dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing high-strength composite materials. Living systems achieve form and function in ways that have little resemblance to modern manufacturing: think digits of a hand, the veins of a leaf, or the seeds of a dandelion that disperse themselves in the wind. Using nature as a model, the research will develop a new technology for the processing of plastics and composites, critical elements in structures like aircraft, automobiles and wind turbine blades, where light weight and high-strength are required. Current manufacturing of these materials is costly, to the large amounts of energy required. Drawing inspiration from living systems, this fundamental research project will result in new plastic materials that require only small initial energy input to trigger the entire manufacturing process and dramatically reduce environmental impact. This new, more efficient method has significant potential to impact and dramatically improve U.S. economic competitiveness in the critical area of composites manufacturing. This award will enable highly collaborative, interdisciplinary research to develop a new manufacturing platform for structural polymers and composites based on an autocatalytic (self-propagating) polymerization reaction occurring in a system undergoing reaction and diffusion of its components. The system uses the exothermic release of energy to provide a positive feedback to the reaction. In turn, this stimulates further exothermic energy release, and a self-propagating reaction front that rapidly moves through the material ? a process called frontal polymerization. Once triggered, the reaction progresses with zero-energy input. The self-sustained propagation of a reaction wave through the material gives rise to entirely new ways of manufacturing high performance composites using rapid, energy efficient methods at greatly reduced costs, including 3D printing of thermosetting polymers and composites. Controlling the reaction wave by simple thermal perturbations gives rise to symmetry breaking events that can enable complex, emergent (morphogenic) pattern formation. Moreover, our biologically inspired concepts for manufacturing provide an ideal platform to inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs, students, postdoctoral researchers, as well as the general public.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.