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UD awarded $2.5 million in NSF grants for nanoscale materials research
 

Sept. 24, 2002--Researchers in the University of Delaware’s College of Engineering have been awarded $2.5 million in grants by the National Science Foundation (NS

John F. Rabolt, Karl W. and Renate Boër Professor and Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UD, called recent grants by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the college for the investigation of nanoscale materials "a vote of confidence for the University."

Photo by Kathy Flickinger

F) to investigate the structure and properties of nanoscale materials.

The multidisciplinary research efforts, which will be led by faculty in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, will focus on the use of genetic engineering to synthesize nanostructural templates and on the structure and properties of electrospun nanofibers, nanocomposites and environmental and metallic nanoparticles.

Specific applications of this research are envisioned in tissue engineering and wound repair, drug delivery, polymer light emitting diodes for next generation flexible “flat panel” displays, electronic optical materials for enhanced microelectronic devices and catalysts and membranes for fuel cells.

Faculty from materials science and engineering will work together with colleagues from the departments of Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physics and Chemistry and researchers from DuPont’s Corporate Research and Development Laboratories, to investigate structure, processing and property relationships in nanoscale materials.

In addition, this multidisciplinary group will integrate research and education so as to provide a new generation of graduate and undergraduate students with the expertise and “work-force ready” skills to compete in the rapidly expanding field of nanoscale materials.

John F. Rabolt, Karl W. and Renate Boër Professor and Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said he believes “nanoscale materials research will help take us to the outer limits of our solar system and to the inner depths of our circulatory system, revolutionizing every aspect of our life from health care to the environment. The potential impact of nanoscale materials over the next 100 years could easily make the 20th century seem like the Dark Ages.”

“NSF funding in this area is a vote of confidence for the University,” Rabolt said, “and has allowed us to assemble a multidisciplinary team of faculty that will bring the strengths of engineering together with those in physics, chemistry and biology in order to address critical research issues in nanoscale materials that will hopefully enable them to be brought into mainstream applications in medicine, electronics and energy conservation.”