NSF Convergence Accelerator Track M: Water-responsive Materials for Evaporation Energy Harvesting

NSF 收敛加速器轨道 M：用于蒸发能量收集的水响应材料

• 批准号: 2344305
• 负责人: Xi Chen
• 金额: $ 65万
• 依托单位: Research Foundation CUNY - Advanced Science Research Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-15 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2344305&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF; Convergence; Accelerator; Track; Water

Many important physiological functions of plants (e.g., seed dispersal and burial) rely on water-responsive (WR) materials that mechanically deform in response to changes in relative humidity (RH). Recently, biological WR materials have demonstrated the capability to generate significantly higher energy actuation compared to all known muscles and actuators. They have enabled the development of evaporation energy harvesting engines and generators that operate autonomously when placed at a suitable air-water vapor interface. Theoretical and physical studies suggest that these devices are highly scalable and could produce power comparable to current solar and wind farms, while mitigating the intermittency issue that is often experienced by these renewable energy sources. Despite their promise, the development of WR materials and their use in evaporation energy harvesting is still in its infancy and faces a broad array of challenges. The overarching goal of this research is to make transformative progress on a new evaporation energy harvesting technique based on WR materials and move the technique from lab-scale to the real world. The research proposes an innovative and transdisciplinary solution to the global energy transition, forwarding an approach that is cost-effective, non-polluting, and fully sustainable, using bio-inspired analogs of the evaporation phase in the hydrologic cycle to power the next generation of energy harvesting devices. The researchers envision that the proposed convergence research will significantly accelerate the growth of the emerging fields of WR materials and evaporation energy harvesting. Ultimately, this research will establish groundbreaking approaches for society to use the ubiquitous and untapped energy source of natural evaporation for actuation, energy conversion, and environmental protection. The proposed broadening participation activities will provide resources, research, and training opportunities to students from underrepresented groups, greatly benefiting STEM education and contribute to education and workforce development in sustainable design.Through convergent and interdisciplinary approaches that merge biomaterials, chemistry, simulation/artificial intelligence (AI), engineering, product design, techno-economic energy analysis, environmental impact and life-cycle analysis, hydrologic analysis, manufacturing/production, and public policy, we aim to: (i) explore and develop new WR materials; (ii) scale-up the WR material manufacturing using sustainable design principles; (iii) execute system-level prototypes of evaporation energy harvesting devices; and (iv) assess techno-economic feasibility and develop marketing strategies. The proposed work will enhance our understanding of the fundamental WR principles of natural materials, as well as provide general guidelines to engineer nanoscale WR materials into macroscale structures. These insights will guide the design of biologically-based WR materials with superior energy/power densities compared to existing actuators, opening up novel opportunities for using sustainable, muscle-like actuators in a wide array of engineering applications. Moreover, the proposed lab-scale prototyping and modeling of the evaporation energy harvesting systems will provide new strategies for utilizing WR materials to drive the rotary motion of mechanical devices sourced through evaporation.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.

植物的许多重要生理功能（例如种子分散和埋葬）依赖于水反应性（WR）材料，这些材料会因响应相对湿度的变化而机械变形（RH）。最近，与所有已知肌肉和执行器相比，生物WR材料已经证明了能够产生更高的能量致动的能力。它们使蒸发能量收集发动机和发电机的开发在适当的空气水蒸气界面时自动运行。理论和物理研究表明，这些设备具有高度可扩展性，并且可能产生与当前太阳能和风电场相当的功率，同时减轻这些可再生能源经常经历的间歇性问题。尽管有希望，但WR材料的发展及其在蒸发能源收集中的使用仍处于起步阶段，并且面临着广泛的挑战。这项研究的总体目标是基于WR材料的新蒸发能量收集技术进行变革性进步，并将技术从实验室规模转移到现实世界。该研究提出了对全球能源过渡的创新和跨学科的解决方案，使用了一种具有成本效益，不污染和完全可持续性的方法，该方法使用了水文周期中蒸发阶段的生物启发的类似物，以动力下一代能源收集设备。研究人员认为，拟议的融合研究将显着加速WR材料和蒸发能量收获的新兴领域的增长。最终，这项研究将为社会建立开创性的方法，以利用无处不在的自然蒸发能源来源进行促进，能量转换和环境保护。 The proposed broadening participation activities will provide resources, research, and training opportunities to students from underrepresented groups, greatly benefiting STEM education and contribute to education and workforce development in sustainable design.Through convergent and interdisciplinary approaches that merge biomaterials, chemistry, simulation/artificial intelligence (AI), engineering, product design, techno-economic energy analysis, environmental impact and life-cycle analysis, hydrologic analysis,制造/生产和公共政策，我们的目标是：（i）探索和开发新的WR材料； （ii）使用可持续设计原理扩展WR材料制造； （iii）执行蒸发能量收集设备的系统级原型； （iv）评估技术经济可行性并制定营销策略。拟议的工作将增强我们对天然材料的基本WR原则的理解，并为工程师Nanoscale WR材料提供一般指南，以纳入宏观的结构。与现有的执行器相比，这些见解将指导具有卓越能量/功率密度的基于生物学的WR材料的设计，从而为在广泛的工程应用中使用可持续的肌肉般的执行器提供了新的机会。此外，拟议的实验室规模原型制作和蒸发能量收集系统的建模将为利用WR材料推动通过蒸发来提出的机械设备的旋转运动提供新的策略。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并认为通过基金会的知识优点和广泛的范围来评估通过评估来进行评估。