This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award will provide partial funding for the renovation and modernization of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, updating the electrical system, improvement of fume hoods and abatement of asbestos in the Graduate Center for Materials Research (MRC) at Missouri University of Science and Technology. This building is routinely used by over 150 personnel, including staff members, graduate and undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scholars. In 2009, 125 different projects were carried out at this Center. Research topics include bioactive glasses, corrosion coatings for construction and transportation, electrodeposited chiral films for spintronic devices, biosensors, and ultrahigh temperature ceramics. However, lack of good temperature and humidity control in the building is seriously affecting the productivity and timely completion of these projects. To meet modern safety and environmental standards, many of the lab fume hoods need to be updated, and asbestos containing materials will be removed from the building.
The MRC faculty members mentor many undergraduate student in research activities that are supported by external funding through such programs as the "Opportunity for Undergraduate Research Experience." As part of outreach activities, MRC staff members mentor and provide research training to over 1,300 K-12 students per year through the Office of Pre-College Programs. The MRC staff also hosts a number of tours of the MRC facilities and equipment by community and industrial groups. Another outreach activity involving the MRC faculty is the ASM Teacher Materials Camp held every summer during the last few years.
Renovation of the Graduate Center for Materials Research atMissouri S&T The Graduate Center for Materials Research at Missouri S&T was established in 1964 for the purpose of multidisciplinary research on materials and to provide improved centralized laboratories and specialized equipment for faculty and students involved in materials research. Research conducted in the Center ranges from fundamental science to applied engineering and includes the development, evaluation, application, and understanding of metals, polymers, ceramics, glass, biomaterials, electronic materials and composites. Straumanis-James Hall (SJH), a four-story building with ~25,000 square feet of laboratory and office space, houses the majority of the facilities and personnel in the Center. The infrastructure of SJH had not been updated since the building opened in 1967. Among the many items that needed to be addressed were asbestos remediation, inadequate electrical power distribution, poor heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control, inefficient energy consumption, non-compliance with aspects of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), and a safety exits that did not meet existing codes. A complete renovation of SJH was completed between Feb of 2011 and May of 2012 with support from the National Science Foundation’s Academic Research Infrastructure Program: Recover and Reinvestment (ARI-R2) and Missouri S&T. Included in the renovation was remediation of exposed asbestos; complete removal and replacement of all electrical and mechanical systems; installation of a motion sensitive HVAC and lighting system to reduce energy costs; demolition and construction of new laboratory and office space; replacement of windows with high energy efficiency glass; relocation of safety egress hallways directly to outside exits; construction of ADA compliant restrooms and laboratory work spaces; and compatibility with the Missouri S&T campus wide geothermal system that will come online in 2014. All of the equipment, students, faculty, and staff were relocated out of the building during renovation and then were successfully moved back in after completion. Since reoccupying SJH during the summer of 2012, the Center has been associated with 35 faculty in 7 different STEM departments, the publication of ~200 publications, education and training of over 50 graduate students, more than 30 different industrial users of the analytical equipment, 4 patent applications, in excess of 100 high school student tours and hands on demonstrations during summer camps, and over 40 different sponsored research projects. Research topics have included development of specialty glasses for biomedical bone and tissue repair, anti-corrosion coatings for automobiles and airplanes, and ceramic films for energy conversion and storage.
