Particle Technology Established Career Fellowship Proposal: Characterisation and Evaluation of New Block Copolymer Nanoparticles

颗粒技术是支撑许多工业领域的重要学科，包括生物医学应用、乳胶漆和涂料、发动机油添加剂、粘度调节剂（增稠剂）和乳液稳定剂。首席研究员Steve Armes教授是英国粒子科学与技术专家之一，在该领域拥有30多年的研究经验。特别是，他在纳米尺度上设计了广泛的微观聚合物颗粒（聚合物是长链分子，可以在链生长过程中进行编程进行原位自组装）。他寻求为期四年的EPSRC粒子技术建立职业奖学金，将更多的时间投入到这些研究活动中，这将与四家英国公司（GEO Specialty Chemicals, Scott Bader, Lubrizol & Syngenta），四位英国学者和三位海外学者密切合作。这将使他能够整合大量的学术和工业专业知识，以解决一系列重要的科学问题，这些问题无法由单个研究人员解决。其中一些问题本质上是根本性的，比如研究非均相聚合过程中颗粒形成的精确机制，或者开发非常精细的颗粒稳定油滴，这些油滴在液滴聚并过程中表现出长期稳定性。概述的研究方案的其他方面具有明显的潜在应用。其中包括：(i)开发用于长期储存人类干细胞的下一代水凝胶，这有可能改变再生医学；（ii）设计高度各向异性的蠕虫状颗粒，作为化妆品配方中一系列油脂的增稠剂；（iii）阐明新的高温机油增稠机制，该机制有可能提高燃油经济性，从而改善空气质量。Armes以其在粒子设计方面的合成专业知识而闻名，但在过去的五年中，他在粒子表征研究方面获得了丰富的经验。特别是，他的研究小组现在使用一系列先进的仪器，如用于粒度分析的小角度x射线散射，通过振荡流变学和使用高压微流化器处理乳液来评估凝胶特性。在该奖学金中，重点将放在粒子表征和评估上，基础粒子合成将由Armes小组的10名博士生进行。为了监督这个雄心勃勃的研究项目，阿梅斯教授要求在四年时间里拿出他薪水的50%。这四个工作包将由四位被提名的经验丰富的博士后科学家承担，他们都是Armes小组的现任成员。总共需要13个博士后（2个）人年，再加上足够的资金来获得所有最先进的设备，这些设备将需要严格表征这些新聚合物颗粒的尺寸分布和溶液行为。此外，还要求为旅行、针对当地和区域小学生的外展方案以及组织为期两天的讲习班提供资金。Armes与众多公司密切合作，他的研究已经启发了巴斯夫、卡博特和帝斯曼的商业产品开发。最近，一家英国中小企业（Diamond Dispersions）通过实施Armes教授提供的非正式技术建议，将年销售额提高了两倍，员工人数增加了一倍。2016年，路博润将其纳米颗粒配方从每批5克扩大到20公斤，并对其作为下一代发动机油添加剂的性能进行了广泛的内部评估，目前已批准在2017年进行中试。因此，Armes教授在商业相关技术创新方面有着出色的记录，这对UK plc具有有形价值。这对最大限度地发挥该研究金的经济影响是一个好兆头。

Particle Technology is an important discipline that underpins many industrial sectors, including biomedical applications, latex paints and coatings, engine oil additives, viscosity modifiers (thickeners) and emulsion stabilisation. The Principal Investigator, Prof. Steve Armes, is one of the UK's experts in particle science and technology, with more than thirty years of research experience in this field. In particular, he designs a wide range of microscopic polymer particles on the nano-scale (polymers are long-chain molecules that can be programmed to undergo in situ self-assembly during chain growth). He seeks a four-year EPSRC Particle Technology Established Career Fellowship to devote more time to such research activities, which will be conducted in close collaboration with four UK-based companies (GEO Specialty Chemicals, Scott Bader, Lubrizol & Syngenta), four UK academics and three overseas academics. This will enable him to integrate substantial academic and industrial expertise in order to tackle a range of important scientific problems that could not be addressed by a single researcher. Some of these problems are fundamental in nature, such as investigating the precise mechanism of particle formation during heterogeneous polymerisation or developing very fine particle-stabilised oil droplets that exhibit long-term stability towards droplet coalescence. Other aspects of the outlined research programme have obvious potential applications. These include: (i) the development of next-generation hydrogels for the long-term storage of human stem cells, which have the potential to transform regenerative medicine; (ii) the design of highly anisotropic worm-like particles to act as thickeners for a range of oils in cosmetics formulations; (iii) the elucidation of new high-temperature oil-thickening mechanisms for engine oils, which has the potential to improve fuel economy and hence improve air quality.Prof. Armes is well-known for his synthetic expertise in particle design, but in the past five years he has gained substantial experience of particle characterisation studies. In particular, his research group now use a range of advanced instrumentation such as small-angle X-ray scattering for particle size analysis, assessing gel properties via oscillatory rheology and emulsion processing using a high-pressure microfluidiser. In this Fellowship, the focus will be on particle characterisation and evaluation, with underpinning particle syntheses being performed by the ten PhD students in the Armes group.To oversee this ambitious research programme, Prof. Armes seeks 50% of his salary for four years. The four work packages will be undertaken by the four named highly-experienced post-doctoral scientists, who are all current members of the Armes group. A total of 13 post-doc (wo)man-years is requested, plus sufficient funds to access all the state-of-the-art equipment that will be required to rigorously characterise the size distributions and solution behaviour of these new polymer particles. In addition, funds are requested for travel, an outreach programme targeting local and regional primary schoolchildren, and to organise a two-day workshop.Prof. Armes has worked closely with a wide range of companies and his research has already inspired the development of commercial products by BASF, Cabot and DSM. More recently, a UK SME (Diamond Dispersions) tripled its annual sales and doubled its workforce by implementing informal technical advice provided by Prof. Armes. In 2016 Lubrizol scaled-up his nanoparticle formulations from five grams to twenty kilos per batch and conducted an extensive in-house evaluation of their performance as additives for next-generation engine oils, with pilot plant trials now approved for 2017. Thus Prof. Armes has an excellent track record of commercially-relevant technical innovation that is of tangible value to UK plc. This augurs well for maximising the economic impact of this Fellowship.