Design Principles for New Soft Materials

软材料包括胶体、聚合物、乳液、泡沫、表面活性剂溶液、粉末和液晶。国内的例子分别是油漆、机油、蛋黄酱、剃须膏、洗发水、爽身粉和肥皂与水接触时出现的粘糊糊的东西。每种类型的高科技例子都用于药物输送，健康食品，环境清理，电子显示器以及许多其他经济部门。软材料还包括阻止我们关节摩擦的润滑剂、血液、粘液和控制单个细胞力学的内部骨骼。该计划的目的是利用理论和实验工作的结合，以及大规模的计算机模拟，建立科学的设计原则，从而创造出21世纪世纪技术所需的新一代软材料。这将需要我们在科学上对材料的制造方式与其最终性质之间的一般和具体联系的理解取得重大进展。随着软材料变得越来越复杂和复杂，它们将越来越多地涉及由可能是活的、合成的或两者结合的组件创建的微结构和复合结构。我们寻求的设计原则最终将允许科学家从这些组件之间的相互作用的规范开始，然后通过有意设计来创造新材料，而不是简单地尝试各种想法并希望其中一个可行。即使在历史悠久的行业（如食品工业，家庭清洁，个人护理产品，油漆等）由软材料制成的产品不断地被更新或替换。这通常是为了使它们更健康，更安全或更环保。然而，目前，开发新的软材料或改进现有材料的过程通常涉及大量的试验和错误。一套基于安全基础科学的设计原则可以加快这一进程。这将降低成本，提高竞争力，改善消费者的福祉。在可再生能源等新兴产业中，这种好处甚至会更大。软复合材料在高能低重量电池、低成本太阳能电池、氢燃料电池以及可能的生物燃料中具有许多潜在的应用。然而，这些应用的设计要求是苛刻的，并且通常涉及具有特定功能的相当复杂的微结构。这同样适用于其他新兴领域，如工业生物技术和组织工程，在这些领域，软材料被用来创造特定的环境，酶、细胞或其他活的成分可以被用来执行特定的任务。除了缩短交货时间和成本，通过建立将新设计理念付诸实践所需的一般原则，我们希望能够创造出创新的软物质产品，否则这些产品可能永远不会进入市场。

Soft materials include colloids, polymers, emulsions, foams, surfactant solutions, powders, and liquid crystals. Domestic examples are (respectively) paint, engine oil, mayonnaise, shaving cream, shampoo, talcum powder and the slimy mess that appears when a bar of soap is left in contact with a water. High tech examples of each type are used in drug delivery, health foods, environmental cleanup, electronic displays, and in many other sectors of the economy. Soft materials also include the lubricant that stops our joints scraping together; blood; mucus, and the internal skeleton that controls the mechanics of individual cells.The intention of this Programme is to use a combination of theoretical and experimental work, alongside large scale computer simulation, to establish scientific design principles that will allow the creation of a new generation of soft materials demanded by 21st Century technologies. This will require significant advances in our scientific understanding of the generic, as well as the specific, connections between how a material is made and what its final properties are. As soft materials become more complex and sophisticated, they will increasingly involve microstructured and composite architectures created from components that may be living, synthetic, or a combination of the two. The design principles we seek will ultimately allow scientists to start from a specification of the interactions between these components, and then create new materials by intentional design, rather than simply trying out various ideas and hoping that one of them works.There could be great rewards from being able to do this. Even in long-established industries (such as the food industry, home cleaning, personal care products, paints etc.) products made of soft materials are continually being updated or replaced. This is often in order to make them healthier, safer, or more environmentally friendly to produce. Currently, however, the process of developing new soft materials, or improving existing ones, usually involves a large element of trial and error. A set of design principles, based on secure fundamental science, could speed up that process. This would reduce costs, increase competitiveness, and improve the well-being of consumers. The benefits would be even greater in new and emerging industries such as renewable energy. Soft composite materials have many potential applications for use in high-energy low-weight batteries; low cost solar cells; hydrogen fuel cells; and possibly biofuels. However the design requirements for these applications are demanding, and often involve quite complex microstructures with specific functionality. The same applies in other emerging areas, such as industrial biotechnology and tissue engineering, where soft materials are used to create specific environments in which enzymes, cells or other live components can be used to perform particular tasks. As well as shortening lead-times and costs, by establishing the general principles needed to put new design ideas into practice, we hope to allow innovative soft-matter products to be created that otherwise might never come to market at all.