The National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) awarded a $380,000 project grant to The Johns Hopkins University to develop methods for feedback-controlled assembly of colloidal precursors into low-defect membranes. The three-year project aims to: 1) measure and model dipolar interactions of porous precursor particles in electric fields to understand how material properties, size, and shape control particle positions, orientations, and packing; 2) measure and model diffusive particle and defect dynamics in liquid, liquid crystal, and crystal states with changing electric fields; and 3) implement feedback control policies to efficiently achieve low-defect supported membrane structures from various shaped precursor particles. The research seeks to provide fundamental rules for tuning field-mediated interactions and a material-agnostic approach to assemble low-defect membranes, which have critical applications in separations technology, catalysis, batteries, solar cells, and sensors. No subawards are planned under this grant.
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