CAREER: Towards A Paradigm of Sustainable Liquid Repellent Surfaces

职业生涯：迈向可持续液体排斥表面的范例

• 批准号: 1751628
• 负责人: Arun Kumar Kota
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-04-01 至 2019-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1751628&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Towards; Paradigm; Sustainable; Liquid

This Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award supports research that will contribute new fundamental knowledge in the field of surface science, related to liquid-repellent surfaces (often called non-stick coatings). Typically, liquid-repellent surfaces are made with long chain fluorocarbon materials. However, long chain fluorocarbon materials are rapidly being phased out because of the growing concerns regarding their negative environmental and biological impacts. This research promotes national health by developing alternative surface treatments to the currently used toxic bio-accumulating materials. New hydro- and omniphobic materials are increasingly in demand for defense and commercial applications in textiles, surface coatings in harsh or "dirty" environments, among others. The work advances the science of surface repellents by providing the basic knowledge needed to design novel liquid-repellent surfaces with the more benign short chain fluorocarbon materials and with performance (i.e., degree of liquid repellency) equivalent to the long chain fluorocarbon materials. Such innovative liquid-repellent surfaces have the potential to drastically alter the non-stick coatings technology landscape in civilian, industrial and defense sectors. Therefore, the results and insights from this research will be significantly beneficial to the U.S. economy and society. The education activities are integrated with this research through the generation of STEM education kits and do-it-yourself (DIY) videos on "Fun with Surface" to be used in K-12 science classes in conjunction with teacher training workshops.Liquid-repellent surfaces consisting of long chain fluorocarbons (i.e., linear molecules with 8 or more fully fluorinated carbons) decompose into perfluorooctanoic acid, which is bio-accumulative and is considered an emerging contaminant. So, it is essential to develop alternative sustainable materials (e.g., short chain fluorocarbons) that can be as liquid-repellent as long chain fluorocarbons. The research is based on the hypothesis that short chain fluorocarbons with high surface crystallinity and re-entrant morphology will offer liquid-repellency equivalent to long chain fluorocarbons. To test this hypothesis, the research team will systematically investigate the influence of molecular architecture of fluorocarbon surface ligands and surface modification reaction coordinates on surface crystallinity and morphology. The resulting liquid-repellency will be investigated experimentally and compared with theoretical predictions. Overall, this research will provide a thorough understanding of molecular architecture-processing-structure-property relationships involved in design of liquid-repellent surfaces and pave the way to a paradigm of sustainable liquid-repellent surfaces.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.

该学院早期职业发展计划（CAREER）奖项支持将在表面科学领域贡献新基础知识的研究，这些知识与防液表面（通常称为不粘涂层）相关。通常，防液表面由长链碳氟化合物材料制成。然而，由于人们越来越担心长链氟碳材料对环境和生物的负面影响，它们正在迅速被淘汰。这项研究通过开发目前使用的有毒生物蓄积材料的替代表面处理方法来促进国民健康。纺织品、恶劣或“肮脏”环境中的表面涂层等国防和商业应用对新型疏水和全疏水材料的需求越来越大。这项工作通过提供设计新型防液表面所需的基础知识，使用更良性的短链氟碳材料和与长链氟碳材料相当的性能（即防液程度），推动了表面防护科学的发展。这种创新的防液表面有可能彻底改变民用、工业和国防领域的不粘涂层技术格局。因此，这项研究的结果和见解将对美国经济和社会显着有益。通过生成 STEM 教育套件和有关“Fun with Surface”的 DIY 视频，将教育活动与这项研究相结合，以便结合教师培训研讨会在 K-12 科学课程中使用。由长链碳氟化合物（即具有 8 个或更多全氟化碳的线性分子）组成的表面分解成全氟辛酸，全氟辛酸具有生物累积性，被认为是一种新兴污染物。因此，开发可替代长链碳氟化合物的可持续材料（例如短链碳氟化合物）至关重要。该研究基于这样的假设：具有高表面结晶度和凹形形态的短链碳氟化合物将提供与长链碳氟化合物相当的液体排斥性。为了验证这一假设，研究团队将系统地研究氟碳表面配体的分子结构和表面改性反应坐标对表面结晶度和形貌的影响。由此产生的拒液性将通过实验进行研究并与理论预测进行比较。总体而言，这项研究将提供对防液表面设计中涉及的分子结构-加工-结构-性能关系的透彻理解，并为可持续防液表面的范例铺平道路。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并已被通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。