Project Grant 80NSSC21K1225

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will support research into a new mold-free manufacturing process called "growth printing" for producing common polymer parts. The $550,000 award to the University of Illinois will study a rapid, cost-effective additive manufacturing method that uses a self-propagating polymerization front, rather than traditional molding, to create durable plastic and rubber parts like computer casings and...

This $125,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program aims to develop new materials processing strategies for flexible packaging films. Specifically, the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Amherst, in collaboration with the UMass Donahue Institute, will investigate melt-mastication and layer multiplying sonication techniques to create high-performance barrier films from single polyolefin types. This seeks to replace traditional...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Biomedical Research and Research Training Program (CFDA 93.859) supports the development of a novel in-line biomanufacturing process analytical technology tool. The $302,417 award to Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI), in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML), aims to enable real-time monitoring of biomolecules in large-scale bioreactors for gene therapy manufacturing. The technology...

This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $249,532 supports the development of an inline particle monitoring system for sterile liquid filtration in food and beverage manufacturing via holographic imaging. Funded through the NSF Engineering Directorate's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), the project advances digital holographic sensing and machine learning image processing to detect and characterize contaminants in real-time with single particle sensitivity. This rapid, label-free...

The National Science Foundation awarded Tcpoly, Inc. a $982,483 cooperative agreement under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) from September 15, 2021 through August 31, 2023. The award will support Tcpoly's development of high thermal conductivity continuous fiber reinforced 3D printing materials. The Engineering program seeks to improve quality of life and economic strength by fostering innovation and excellence in engineering research. This award advances those goals by funding research...

This $550,000 National Science Foundation project grant will support the development of novel synthetic approaches for manufacturing optical polymers at the University of Arizona from June 2022 to May 2025. Funded through NSF's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program, principal investigators Jeffrey Pyun and Robert Norwood will investigate a new step-growth polymerization process using sulfenyl chlorides to electrophilically add to olefinic monomers. Their research aims to address the high...

This $287,941 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) aims to develop a novel biochemical sensor technology that can quantify small plastic particles in human blood serum samples. The research project will leverage quantum-coherent light-matter interactions on engineered photonic metasurfaces to advance the analytical performance of mid-infrared absorption spectroscopy. Key objectives include: 1) developing new sensor chips, 2)...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for $647,188 supports fundamental research to enable additive manufacturing of high-quality fiber-reinforced polymer composites through in-situ thermal polymerization of the matrix resin. The project, under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), aims to develop a new composite manufacturing platform that uses a remote stimulus to instantaneously polymerize and rigidize the printed composite material during...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $998,320 Cooperative Agreement under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) program (CFDA 47.084) to Applied Ocean Sciences, LLC to develop an innovative ultrasound-based sensor for real-time detection and characterization of microplastics in water. This project aims to revolutionize microplastics monitoring capabilities by creating a rapid, cost-effective solution compared to existing optical-based methods. The sensor leverages...

This Project Grant award of $324,100.00 from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund research to study the flow behavior of suspensions consisting of polymers and micron-sized particles during extrusion through a nozzle. The objective is to elucidate the effects of polymer bridges on the extensional flow properties of these colloid-polymer mixtures. The research will link the extensional response of the bridging mixtures to the polymer macromolecular...