Within the framework of "Sustainable Engineering for the Next Millennium" established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) the vision of the proposed Engineering Research Center (ERC) is to unravel the mystery of natural rubber (NR) biosynthesis, the last "holy grail" of rubber science and technology. Plastic and rubber waste have created an enormous societal impact. We must find solutions to address sustainable production and recycling, closing the loop. The proposed ERC will focus on renewal of rubber technology, revolutionizing a field that has been based on science and engineering from the last millennium. Bio-based AND fully recyclable polymers are sorely needed since humankind is being overtaken by plastic and rubber waste. This Planning Grant proposal will enable us to put together the best program and team possible, helping mankind to save our Earth. In spite of almost a 4,000 year history and the tools of modern biology, we still do not fully understand how natural rubber is made by plants. The United States has no commercial bio-based rubber production of its own and in 2018 imported over $1.5 billion worth of this raw material, critical to an economy that requires $13 billion worth of natural rubber for natural rubber containing tires, as well as many other natural rubber products. As demand for natural rubber continues to increase, we now face a significant supply problem. The proposed ERC will generate the knowledge needed to find the holy grail and understand how different plant species produce natural rubber, provide the methods essential to producing synthetic rubber using monomers from renewable resources that matches the properties of Hevea rubber, and cultivate and scale domestic rubber crops to industrial-level production. Inclusion and diversity in this ERC are addressed, for example: the initial leadership team has 3 women and 2 men, and a specific subset of young people on the autistic and dyslexic spectrum will be engaged. Providing opportunities to high functioning students from these groups will leverage their absolute strength in abstract spatial reasoning in discussion, interpretation and prediction, to benefit and SuRPrISE the more conventional "normal" thinkers.
The proposed ERC will address strategically focused fundamental research in natural rubbers, with special emphasis on domestic crops that biosynthesize macromolecules that match natural rubber from rubber trees (Hevea), viz., high molecular weight cis-1,4 polyisoprene. We aim at seamless blending of science and engineering that leads to sustainable and ecologically-sound scalability, built with industrial collaborations that will translate new discoveries into commercially viable applications within a resilient bio-economy. More specifically, the Center will address strategic fundamental research in elastomers and crosslinked rubbers to achieve absolute gains in sustainability, while meeting or exceeding current levels of performance required by both legacy and new applications. New ways of approaching material needs and gaps will be developed and validated, creating a robust, broadly applicable demonstration of commercial resiliency informed by sustainable and resilient natural systems, accepted by our industrial collaborators and their customers. To achieve this, the Center intends to: 1) understand natural rubber biosynthesis, including NR structure, and the structure of enzymes involved in NR biosynthesis; 2) overcome limitations to expansion of alternative NR crops in the US; 3) discover synthetic polymer analogs of NR by combining true biomimicry with chemical, biochemical and biologically-sustainable production systems; 4) synthesize new recyclable crosslinked rubbers and composite materials with novel combinations of mechanical properties from renewable resources, especially focusing on un-met performance and structural needs; 5) qualify all discoveries through analysis and prediction of their commercial viability and sustainability as industrial adoption and production moves from niche markets to commodity scale. These goals can only be achieved by a well-organized ERC, the goal of this planning grant addressing societal impact, convergence, stakeholder community, and team formation having effective leadership/management. The proposed vision requires interdisciplinary collaboration among academe, industry and government organizations. Based on these collaborations a new discipline of "Scalable Scigineering" can be established, which will integrate science and engineering at a fundamental and scalable level.
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.
