The objective of this project is to enhance NC A&T's research and educational capability in the area of bio-based materials through integrating an innovative and novel International I-Corps (I2-Corps) program into graduate students' research and education to 1) accelerate research and discovery in bio-based materials via international partnerships, 2) ensure relevance of research to industry applications, and 3) enhance student's global awareness via synchronized scientific research, customer discovery, and market analysis. The effort is centered on a potentially transformative approach to capacity building in research and education through developing a research niche at NC A&T State University that addresses the needs of the bio-economy of 2030. This is to be achieved through strengthening the core competency of NC A&T State University in research in Sustainable Bio-materials through integrating technological innovation utilizing the NSF I-Corps model in an international context.
Bio-based materials are to be investigated, developed, and deployed through an integrated approach utilizing experiments and modeling. The modeling will use molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory. International collaboration is a key for realization of the vision in a holistic manner, because sustainable resources are location-specific, and their localized accessibility and abundance promotes specific bio-mass conversion expertise and bio-materials knowledge development in the respective region or country. For instance, while the U.S. team has experience in extracting molecular species from animal manure, the partners in France have experience working with algae, and the Danish and Brazilian partners have worked with jojoba oil and castor oil, respectively. international collaboration will bring together the complementary expertise necessary to address the challenge of engineering bio-material from bio-waste.
