Interface-promoted Assembly and Disassembly Processes for Rapid Manufacture of Complex Hybrid Nanomaterials

PI Johnson, M.S. candidate Erickson and Ph.D. candidate Cesar Ron led Learning Abroad courses in Ecuador in August 2017 and 2018. Of particular interest to this project is the development of Lateral Channel Biofiltration systems to simultaneously achieve two critical goals: a) drive lateral seepage through alluvium and thereby focus deposition of particle-bound contaminants and precious metals in target alluvial zones between contaminated rivers and constructed lateral channels for later exploitation by miners; b) improve the quality of water in constructed lateral channels for exploitation by locals

Molecular Assembly in K-12 and Innovation

Benefits to K-12 and public education by outreach activities that highlight the way materials are made in our project by self-assembly.

Self-assembled Peptide-p-electron Supramolular Polymers:Student Training and Dissemination

J. Tovar, H. Katz (Johns Hopkins U.) A. Ferguson (U. Chicago)

Undergraduate and High School Research. At JHU, undergraduates Rachel Barrows and Celina Nichols worked on biosensitive electronic devices, and Clara Troyano-Valls on heterostructure self-sorting. Clara will enter MIT for graduate work in Chemical Engineering. At Chicago, undergraduate Olivia Dunne and high school senior Isabella Moughal worked on molecular simulations of peptides. Isabella will attend UIUC for an undergraduate degree in engineering. At UIUC, high school student Dina Hashash developed 3D visualizations of assembled oligopeptides.Broad Dissemination. All computational codes have been hosted on GitHub (https://github.com/), simulation trajectories on the Materials Data Facility (https://materialsdatafacility.org/), and a project webpage provides information about the team and research outcomes (https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/dmref/).

Observation of Structural Phase Changes Driven by Electrostatic Gating

Evan J. Reed

Our efforts in data mining and machine learning have resulted in a number of new databases and predictions. These include: a database of over 1,000 2D materials that exist naturally as layered materials in the bulk (a), exploration of possible 2D materials that could be used in phase change applications, prediction of new superionic solid state Li-containing battery materials, and the creation of a website that allows researchers to easily search and predict the conductivity of solid-state electrolyte materials.

Tools for Block Polymer Materials Discovery

Glenn H. Fredrickson and Kevin D. Dorfman

As part of this project, the PIs have developed a version of the Polymer Self-Consistent Field (PSCF) software package that incorporates GPU acceleration. This new version of the PSCF software package, currently the only open-source code for solving the self-consistent field theory (SCFT) equations for block polymers, achieves up to a 60x improvement in speed over the previous CPU-based code.