BRITE Relaunch: Realizing the Benefits of Additive Manufacturing for the Microstructural Control of Polymer Material Systems

这个促进工程变革和公平进步的研究理念（BRITE）重新启动项目将提供解决可重复使用聚合物材料主题的关键工程问题的知识。这项工作有望提高生物医学应用材料的可靠性，并实现具有成本效益的水净化解决方案。这个项目成功的核心是一种涉及3D打印的新材料设计方法，该方法将用于制造塑料材料，这些材料在损坏时可以很容易地愈合。该项目将在一所少数族裔服务机构进行，为STEM领域中代表性不足的群体提供公平和包容的研究和教育机会。该项目还将引领聚合物路径计划，这是一项面向德克萨斯州埃尔帕索当地K-12人口的推广和教育工作，该地区的贫困率高于全国平均水平，人口中超过80%是西班牙裔。一个中心目标是改变人们对塑料材料的态度，从“使用后扔掉”到“使用、治疗、再利用”。该项目的总体目标是通过增材制造支持的微观结构控制，将聚合物材料的范例从一次性变为可重复使用。这种微结构控制将用于调整聚合物系统的形状记忆和自愈特性。该项目将利用一种被称为“准自组装”的材料设计概念，其中聚合物相的形态通过熔融长丝制造的增材制造工艺来控制。该项目将建立在PI先前发现的基础上，该发现记录了多组分聚合物共混物中的相排列对形状记忆性能的影响。本研究将使用两大类材料；生物相容性聚合物和可通过使苯乙烯块功能化的简单化学过程被操纵成离子交换膜的聚合物。该项目产生的知识将为未来单一材料设计方法的影响提供工程基础。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 Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Relaunch project will provide knowledge that will solve critical engineering problems on the topic of reusable polymeric materials. The work promises to improve reliability of materials for biomedical applications and enable cost-effective water purification solutions. Central to the success of this project is a new materials design approach involving 3D printing that will be used to create plastic materials that can be easily healed when damaged. The project will be performed at a minority-serving institution, providing equitable and inclusive research and educational opportunities for groups underrepresented in STEM fields. This project will also spearhead the Polymer Pathways Program, an outreach and education effort that will be geared towards the local K-12 population of El Paso, Texas which has a poverty rate greater than the national average and a demographic that is over 80% Hispanic. A central goal is to change attitudes pertaining to plastic materials from that of “use and throw away” to that of “use, heal, reuse.”The overarching goal of this project is to change the paradigm of polymer materials from disposable to reusable through additive manufacturing-enabled microstructural control. This microstructural control will be used to tune the shape memory and self-healing properties of polymer systems. This project will utilize a materials design concept dubbed “quasi-self-assembly” where the morphology of polymer phases is manipulated by the additive manufacturing process of fused filament fabrication. This project will build upon prior discoveries made by the PI which have documented that phase alignment in multi-constituent polymer blends has an influence on shape memory performance. Two main categories of materials will be used in this study; biocompatible polymers and polymers that can be manipulated into ion exchange membranes by way of a facile chemical process that functionalizes styrenic blocks. The knowledge generated by this project will provide engineering foundations for future impacts on a single materials design approach.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.