Collaborative Research: DMREF: Designing Linked Gel Networks with Tunable Valence

合作研究：DMREF：设计具有可调价的链接凝胶网络

• 批准号: 2323482
• 负责人: Thomas Truskett
• 金额: $ 155万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2323482&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; DMREF; Designing; Linked

The goal of the research supported by this Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) award is to design gel materials with controlled mechanical and optical properties. Colloidal gels are bonded, three-dimensional networks of tiny particles (colloids) whose spatial organization and connectivity result in distinctive combinations of properties useful for wide-ranging applications. The project will result in new ways to use computers to simulate and design materials based on their component colloids and their interactions. The investigators will develop soft, processable gels that interact with light in ways typically associated with hard solids and materials that could emulate the mechanical function of natural protein networks to stabilize synthetic cells. Simulation software developed by the team will be shared as open-source code. The award will support the transition of community college students to four-year STEM degree programs through mentorship and summer research experiences.The dynamic connectivity and organization of gel networks across length scales determine their physical properties, motivating the development of structural design principles applicable to diverse gel compositions. Gels will be assembled from well-defined star-polymers and ligand-functionalized nanocrystals, for which a unified coarse-grained modeling scheme that treats the building blocks as patchy colloids with discrete binding sites will be developed and validated. A linker strategy, in which macromers or nanocrystals are reversibly connected by bifunctional molecules, offers macroscopic control over the number of nearest neighbors and modular tunability of composition, structure, and resulting properties. This strategy and the associated design principles will be advanced to direct the mechanical properties of hydrogels, optical properties of plasmonic nanocrystal gels, and the mechano-optical response of hybrid networks by controlling the phase behavior through modulating linker-to-colloid ratio and properties of the components. The project will leverage recent progress in making and modeling networks with dynamic covalent bonding and in computing the optical response of structurally complex assemblies by considering the mutual polarization of nanoparticle dipoles under resonant excitation. Tight integration of synthesis, assembly, and characterization with theory and modeling will give a full picture of the range of behaviors that can be achieved through use of these hybrid structural motifs.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.

这种设计材料支持的研究的目的是彻底改变和设计我们的未来（DMREF）奖，以设计具有控制的机械和光学特性的凝胶材料。胶体凝胶是粘合的，是小颗粒（胶体）的三维网络，其空间组织和连通性可导致对广泛应用有用的特性的独特组合。该项目将基于其组件胶体及其相互作用来使用计算机来模拟和设计材料的新方法。研究人员将开发柔软，可加工的凝胶，这些凝胶与光相互作用，通常与硬固体和材料相关联，这些凝胶可以模仿天然蛋白质网络的机械功能以稳定合成细胞。团队开发的仿真软件将作为开源代码共享。该奖项将通过指导和夏季研究经验来支持社区大学生向四年制STEM学位课程的过渡。跨长度尺度的凝胶网络的动态连通性和组织决定了它们的物理特性，从而激发了适用于各种凝胶组成的结构设计原理的发展。凝胶将从定义明确的星聚合物和配体功能化的纳米晶体中组装，为此，将开发并验证统一的粗粒化建模方案，作为用离散结合位点的斑块胶体将构件视为块状胶体。一个接头策略，其中宏观或纳米晶体通过双功能分子可逆地连接，可对最近的邻居数量以及组成，结构和结果性质的模块化可调性提供宏观控制。该策略和相关的设计原理将提出，以指导水凝胶的机械性能，等离激元纳米晶体凝胶的光学性能以及通过调节连接器与循环型比率和组件的性能来控制相行为，从而控制杂交网络的机械响应。该项目将通过动态共价键合创建和建模网络的最新进展，并通过考虑在谐振激发下的纳米粒子偶极子的相互极化来计算结构复杂组件的光学响应。合成，组装和与理论和建模的特征的紧密整合将为通过使用这些混合结构主题而实现的一系列行为范围。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛影响的审查审查标准来通过评估来通过评估来支持的。