A5083706074- Fiber-reinforced polymer composites
- Polymer crystallization and properties
- Polymer composites and self-healing
- biodegradable polymer synthesis and properties
- Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
- Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
- Advanced Cellulose Research Studies
- Advanced Polymer Synthesis and Characterization
- Lignin and Wood Chemistry
- Conducting polymers and applications
- Machine Learning in Materials Science
- Polymer Surface Interaction Studies
- Graphene research and applications
- Membrane Separation Technologies
- Hydrogels: synthesis, properties, applications
- Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies
- Carbon Nanotubes in Composites
- Advanced Materials and Mechanics
- Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
- Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications
- Phase Change Materials Research
- Computational Drug Discovery Methods
- Electrospun Nanofibers in Biomedical Applications
- Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions
- Recycling and Waste Management Techniques
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
2019-2025
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory
2025
Physical Sciences (United States)
2024
Oak Ridge Associated Universities
2019
Purdue University West Lafayette
2014-2017
Natural wood has served as a foundational material for buildings, furniture, and architectural structures millennia, typically shaped through subtractive manufacturing techniques. However, this process often generates substantial waste, leading to inefficiency increased production costs. A potential opportunity arises if complex can be created additive processes. Here, we demonstrate an additive-free, water-based ink made of lignin cellulose, the primary building blocks natural wood, that...
Upcycling plastic waste into reprocessable materials with performance-advantaged properties would contribute to the development of a circular plastics economy. Here, we modify branched polyolefins and postconsumer polyethylene through versatile C–H functionalization approach using thiosulfonates as privileged radical group transfer functionality. Cross-linking functionalized polytopic amines provided dynamically cross-linked polyolefin networks enabled by associative bond exchange...
The predictive design of flexible and solvent-free polymer electrolytes for solid-state batteries requires an understanding the fundamental principles governing ion transport. In this work, we establish a correlation among composite structures, segmental dynamics, lithium (Li+) transport in ceramic-polymer composite. Elucidating structure-property relationship will allow tailoring Li+ conductivity by optimizing macroscopic electrochemical stability electrolyte. dissociation from slow...
Soft, fully renewable vitrimers have been introduced to circumvent the lack of recyclability traditional elastomers with permanent cross-linked structures, while preserving advantages rheo-structural stability, and mechanical properties.
We present a streamlined method to covalently bond hydroxylated carbon nanotubes (CNOH) within polyphenol matrix, all achieved through direct, solvent-free process. Employing an extremely small concentration of CNOH (0.01% w/w) along with topologically contrasting linkers led maximum 5-fold increase in modulus and 25% enhancement tensile strength compared the unaltered order magnitude greater reinforcement (w/w) state-of-the-art melt-processed nanocomposites. Through dynamic mechanical...
This study investigates the impact of ceramic particle size on bulk and interfacial ion transport properties composite polymer electrolytes. The particles used for this are micrometer-sized commercial lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO) powders LLTO nanorods (NR) prepared in laboratory. matrices vinylene carbonate (VEC) based single-ion-conducting (SIC) dual-ion-conducting (DIC) Our results reveal that addition NR improved transport, while is ineffective or even detrimental. We ascribe these...
Understanding and optimizing the key mechanisms used in synthesis of pitch-based carbon fibers (CFs) are challenging, because unlike polyacrylonitrile-based CFs, feedstock for CFs is chemically heterogeneous, resulting complex fabrication leading to inconsistency final properties. In this work, we use molecular dynamics simulations explore processing chemical phase space through a framework CF models identify their effects on elastic performance. The results excellent agreement with...
Abstract To enhance the mechanical properties of carbon fiber‐reinforced polymer composites, a physicochemical scaffold is designed incorporating microscopically architected chemically reactive nanofibers that act as multiscale bridge between fibers and matrix. Thermally activated leverage their morphologically driven mechanochemical to form covalent bonds with adjacent molecules, creating co‐continuous network dramatically enhances fiber‐matrix load transfer. By meticulously controlling...
Blending polymers produces brittle materials due to macrophase separation and poor interfacial adhesion, which is exemplified by mixtures of polyolefins. This presents a formidable challenge for the mechanical recycling mixed plastic waste. Here, we show that dynamic covalent crosslinking immiscible polyolefin blends at their interfaces within bulk creates co-continuous architectures enhance stress transfer, toughness, amenability reprocessing. Along with morphological changes reductions in...
The weak welding strength between filament layers in fused deposition modeling (FDM) products results anisotropic mechanical properties that are also sensitive to print patterns. Furthermore, poor transverse directional alignment coupled with slow printing rates limit their applicability for industrial production. We hypothesize interfilamentous can be enhanced by modifying the chemistry of building blocks and topological arrangement macromolecular structure. To test this, we carried out...
Development of facile approaches to convert plastic waste into liquid fuels under neat conditions is highly desired but challenging, particularly without noble metal catalysts and an external hydrogen source. Herein, efficient selective polyethylene-to-gasoline oil (branched C6-C12 alkanes) conversion was achieved mild (<170 °C) using commercially available AlCl3-containing molten salts as reaction media provide catalytic sites (no extra solvents, additives, or feeding). The high efficiency...
Ammonia is a promising candidate as liquid hydrogen energy storage medium, but it requires catalytic decomposition (ammonia cracking) to regenerate hydrogen. Recently developed trimetallic ruthenium-potassium-promoter (RuKM) ammonia catalysts have exceptionally low temperatures, able perform the 250 °C, which significantly lower than other known that require temperatures above 500 °C. However, effects of RuKM precursor on activity not been investigated. We report observed differences 3%...
Molecular interactions, chain alignment and entanglement of the hybrid poplar biomass in ionic liquid were investigated for fiber manufacturing.
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) are soft materials which anisotropically shape morph in response to external stimuli. Herein, a method produce large‐area carbon nanotube–LCE nanocomposite films with exceptional electrostrictive properties is examined. A methodology telechelic precursor oligomeric composites at scale (>100 g) presented along the continuous casting and photocuring process. The nanotubes well‐aligned well‐dispersed films, exhibit anisotropic thermomechanical, optical,...
Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is an important commercial polymer, bearing atactic stereochemistry resulting from nonselective radical polymerization. As such, accurate, fundamental understanding of governing interactions among PAN molecular units indispensable for advancing the design principles final products at reduced processability costs. While ab initio dynamics (AIMD) simulations can provide necessary accuracy treating key in polar polymers, such as dipole-dipole and hydrogen bonding,...
Oppositely charged polyelectrolytes often form polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) due to the association through electrostatic interactions. Obtaining PECs using natural, biocompatible is of interest in food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical industries. In this work, were prepared from two biopolymers, positively chitosan negatively alginate. We investigate changes structure properties by adding sodium chloride (salt doping) system. The shear modulus can be tuned ∼10 104 Pa changing salt...
End-functionalized poly(acrylic acid) (PAA-silane) was synthesized with reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization and attached to both polysulfone ultrafiltration (UF) polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membranes through a nonimpairing, one-step grafting approach in order improve membrane surface wettability minimal impact on transport performance. After PAA grafting, composition morphology changes the were characterized Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)...
Fiber-Matrix interphaseIn article 2305642, Christopher C. Bowland and co-workers introduce a hierarchically architected fiber-matrix interphase for tougher composite.High aspect ratio chemically transformable thermoplastic nanofibers, integrated at the interphase, form covalent bonds with matrix through heat treatment, enhancing composite toughness.This scalable approach offers less intensive solution to address persistent weak issues in industry.
We report synthesis of a high-strength renewable phenolic composition with linear large deformation strain without thermoplastic-like yielding while retaining thermal processability. Small molecule carboxylic acid derivatives varying molecular architectures act as esterifying crosslinkers in an equal mass mixture lignin and acrylonitrile–butadiene copolymers highly scalable, solvent-free process. These "inverse thermoplastic vulcanizates" (iTPVs)─unique their approach crosslinking the rigid...
Transformer-based large language models have remarkable potential to accelerate design optimization for applications such as drug development and material discovery. Self-supervised pretraining of transformer requires large-scale data sets, which are often sparsely populated in topical areas polymer science. State-of-the-art approaches polymers conduct augmentation generate additional samples but unavoidably incur extra computational costs. In contrast, open-source sets available small...
Highly structured network polymers are prepared via a molecular layer by technique (mLbL) and used as model system to study aqueous degradation of polymer thin films in real time. Quantitative analysis the kinetics was enabled use quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). We conclude that common metric halogen, specifically chlorine, exposure (concentration × time) be an ineffective normalization unit showed multistage adsorption process consistent with established chemical mechanism. Additionally,...
The facile oxidation of PS- b -P4VP and -P2VP leads to -P4VPNO -P2VPNO copolymers with high block incompatibility (high- χ BCPs). Well-ordered, thermally-stable sub-10 nm nanostructures are obtained.