Developing surfmer structure-property relationships for high internal phase emulsion foams

随着对清洁水的需求沿着对改善生活质量的产品的需求的增长，支持化学产品的开发和生产的工业继续向环境中释放污染物和污染物。需要有技术从水中去除这些化学品，以有效和具有成本效益的方式使其安全地用于日常使用。高内相乳液聚合物泡沫（pHIPE）是一种从水中提取化学物质并将其捕获在孔隙中的材料，从而产生更清洁，更安全的水。然而，目前用于制造pHIPE的方法使用必须在使用前去除的化学品，导致材料成本增加，并且担心这些材料中的残留污染物可能进一步污染水。该项目解决了国家对创造有效和安全的pHIPE的需求，这些pHIPE不会造成环境风险，同时保持低制造成本。此外，研究团队成员将直接与社区利益相关者合作，了解水处理的知识和看法以及可用的处理技术，以增加社区对pHIPE技术的采用和所有权。高内相乳液聚合物泡沫（pHIPE）是一种水处理技术，需要解决社区水处理基础设施的紧迫问题。pHIPE是具有高内表面积的吸附剂，其源自初始溶剂/单体乳液和稳定溶剂/单体界面的表面活性剂。尽管pHIPE功能依赖于表面活性剂，但很少有人了解表面活性剂结构对pHIPE性能的影响或减少聚合后去除表面活性剂的需要。为了满足这一需求，该项目将确定结构-性能关系的反应性表面活性剂（surfmers），证明表面活性剂的结构上的多孔性能和散装性能的pHIPES的影响。Surfmer将被合成和设计为稳定单体/溶剂界面并参与本体聚合，从而产生具有可调界面活性和多孔形态的pHIPE，其不会浸出并符合绿色化学原理。合成后，表面活性剂结构将与界面动力学（例如，界面张力、扩散和吸附），泡沫性能（例如，比表面积和孔形态）和聚合（例如表面活性剂掺入、转化率和模量）。这项工作还将包括研究，以制定有效的战略，与非科学家就水质问题，可用的技术和现有的基础设施，在他们的社区，以提高科学素养的目标进行沟通。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

As the demand for clean water grows along with demand for products that improve quality of life, industries that support the development and production of chemical products continue to release pollutants and contaminants into the environment. Technology is needed to remove these chemicals from water to render it safe for daily use in an efficient and cost-effective manner. High internal phase emulsion polymer foams (pHIPE) are materials that pull chemicals from the water and trap them in pores, resulting in cleaner, safer water. However, current methods for manufacturing pHIPE use chemicals that must be removed prior to use, resulting in an increase in material cost and a concern that residual contaminants in these materials may further pollute the water. This project addresses the national need for creating effective and safe pHIPE that pose no environmental risk while retaining a low manufacturing cost. In addition, the research team members will work directly with community stakeholders to understand knowledge and perception of water treatment and available treatment technologies to increase community adoption and ownership of the pHIPE technology.High internal phase emulsion polymer foams (pHIPEs) are a form of water treatment technology needed to address urgent issues with community water treatment infrastructure. pHIPEs are adsorbents with a high internal surface area that originates from the initial solvent/monomer emulsion and the surfactant that stabilizes the solvent/monomer interface. Despite the reliance of pHIPE function on surfactants, little work has been done to understand the impact of surfactant structure on pHIPE performance or reduce the need to remove it post-polymerization. To meet this need, this project will determine structure-property relationships for reactive surfactants (surfmers) that demonstrate the impact of surfactant structure on the porous performance and bulk properties of pHIPEs. Surfmers will be synthesized and designed to stabilize the monomer/solvent interface and to participate in bulk polymerization, resulting in pHIPEs with tunable interfacial activity and porous morphology that do not leach and that conform to the principles of green chemistry. After synthesis, surfmer structure will be correlated to interfacial dynamics (e.g., interfacial tension, diffusion, and adsorption), foam performance (e.g., specific surface area and pore morphology), and polymerization (e.g, surfmer incorporation, conversion, and modulus). This work will also incorporate research to develop effective strategies for communicating with non-scientists about water quality issues, available technologies, and existing infrastructure in their community, with the goal of increasing scientific literacy.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.