Category Archives: News

Scientists Discuss Promise of New Agreement Between UD and NIST

The day began with coffee, bagels, and some hearty discussions about experimental data. The University of Delaware’s fifth Neutron Day was held Wednesday, Nov. 8 in Perkins Hall and the Patrick Harker Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (ISE) Lab. This year, Neutron Day was a celebration of more than its namesake subatomic particle. UD’s Center for Neutron Science (founded in 2007) recently entered into another cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). Under this new agreement, UD’s Center for Neutron Science will advance the field of neutron scattering by developing new techniques, applying these techniques to new applications, and training the next generation of neutron scientists. The agreement began on Sept. 1 with $1.7 million of funding and projects a funding total of more than $8.7 million through Aug. 31, 2022, which brings the total funding to the center to well over $30 million over the past ten years. UD’s Center for Neutron Science is directed by Norm Wagner, the Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is a fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of America, a regular user of NCNR facilities and a contributor to the development of neutron scattering instrumentation.

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University of Delaware/NASA Johnson Space Center, Human Exploration & Operations and Space Technology Mission Directorates
As NASA propels science, technology and exploration forward, the need for spacesuits composed of lightweight, long-lived and flexible materials becomes increasingly urgent. In space, micrometeorites and orbital debris (MMOD) can compromise the air barrier of a space suit, causing pinhole punctures that are difficult to identify and repair. Our work focuses on developing healing materials capable of regenerating functionality after damage. In our approach, we are synthesizing fundamentally new, self-healing polymers in which a dynamic bond is built into the network architecture to enable a lightactivated secondary polymerization, increasing the modulus by two orders of magnitude and strengthening the network by over 100%. This work has been recently published in Advanced Materials (2015, 27, 8007–8010). We demonstrated that the material can be completely severed and then remended with increased material strength and no visible scarring. Moreover, our approach confines healing and strengthening to the damaged area; thus, an EVA suit could maintain flexibility in unaffected areas. By developing healing polymer networks, the safety and service lifetime of the material are enhanced. This material was selected by NASA to be tested on the exterior of the International Space Station in 2017 to test its response the extreme environment of outer space. See article…
Stimuli is a summary collection of college and university basic research and technology development reports impacting NASA’s earth science, aviation, and human and robotic deep space exploration programs. This document addresses research which is relevant to NASA’s mission, and currently administered by the agency’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

Engineering Enhanced Cut and Puncture Resistance into the Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment (TMG) using Shear Thickening Fluid (STF) – Armor™ Absorber Layers

The low-earth orbit environment contains small micrometeoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) particles traveling at characteristic velocities of several kilometers per second. In addition to being a direct threat to astronauts and spacecraft, upon impact with the exterior surface of a space vehicle, these highly energetic MMOD particles can create cut and puncture hazards for astronauts performing extra-vehicular activities (EVA). In this work, we demonstrate that replacing the standard neoprene-coated nylon absorber layers with woven aramid textiles intercalated with colloidal shear thickening fluids, i.e., STF-Armor™, can provide a meaningful enhancement to the cut and puncture resistance of the thermal micrometeoroid garment (TMG). Quasi-static puncture testing is performed using hypodermic needles of varying gauge to simulate the cutting and puncture hazards at deformation rates characteristic of human motion. At equal areal densities, we find that a TMG lay-up containing STF-Armor™ greatly improves puncture protection with a reduction in weight and comparable flexibility.

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University of Delaware Professor Norman J. Wagner, Robert L. Pigford Chair of Chemical Engineering, Joint Professor of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Joint Professor of the Biomechanics and Movement Science Program, and Director of the University of Delaware Center for Neutron Science, gives a tour to United States Senator for Delaware Christopher Coons at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Professor Wagner explains the University of Delaware Center for Neutron Science (CNS) partnership with the National Institute of Standards Technology Center for Neutron Research (NIST-NCNR).

Read more about the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research (NIST-NCNR)

Dr Jeff Richards, NIST/UD NRC Postdoc, Ms. Julie Hipp, UD Grad student, and Dr. John Riley, UD, CNS Postdoc, perform some of the world’s first simultaneous rheo-SANS-dielectric measurements on NG7 beamline at the NCNR.

Four Awards Were Presented to UD and Former UD Students and Faculty

Four awards were presented to UD and former UD students and faculty at the 2016 American Conference on Neutron Scattering on the Queen Mary in Long Beach CA in July. [From left to right in picture] Prof. Norman Wagner received the Neutron Scattering Society of America’s Service Award for his work on the executive committee and long-standing efforts to raise funding for students, post docs, and young scientists to attend the meeting. Ph.D. student, Michelle Calabrese of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, won one of four student poster prizes out of a field of over 80 scientific posters for her work on understanding the effects of branching on the flow of self-assembled surfactants. Former PhD student, Dr. P. Douglas Godfrin, won the Best Dissertation Award, while Dr. Yun Liu, UD Research Associate Professor and NIST Beamline Scientist won the Science Prize of the ACNS. Dr. Godfrin received his PhD in 2015 for his work on understanding the properties and stability of monoclonal antibodies and protein solutions under the advisement of Prof. Wagner and Dr. Liu. The ACNS is held once every two years and is the premier North American scientific venue for presenting and discussing scientific advances afforded by neutron scattering methods.

Matthew E. Helgeson, Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware, 2009

Unilever Award is given in recognition of fundamental work in colloid or surfactant science carried out in North America by researchers in the early stages of their careers. The 2016 Unilever Award winner is Prof. Matthew Helgeson from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Matthew E. Helgeson is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2004, he received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2009, he received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware, where he performed doctoral research with Norman Wagner and Eric Kaler. From 2009-2012, he performed postdoctoral research in the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Patrick Doyle. Helgeson joined the faculty of UCSB in 2012, where he holds an appointment in the Department of Chemical Engineering and is a faculty member of the Materials Research Laboratory. Read more about Helgeson’s research…

Two UD professors inducted into National Academy of Inventors

You might say that curiosity got the best of University of Delaware inventors Norman J. Wagner III and the late Richard F. Heck. And we’ve undoubtedly been the beneficiaries of their scientific sleuthing and tinkering. The two were inducted as fellows into the National Academy of Inventors on Friday, April 15, in ceremonies at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia. Wagner, who is the Unidel Robert Pigford Chaired Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, answered some questions for UDaily about developing superhero materials called shear thickening fluids – some that he has developed into “liquid armor” – and what it’s like to be an inventor. Read more about how ‘shear” genius provides super-hero protection…

P. Douglas Godfrin

University of Delaware

Dr. P. Douglas Godfrin is the recipient of the 2016 Prize for Outstanding Student Research Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) with the citation “For seminal neutron scattering studies of concentrated protein solutions and protein dynamics with application to biopharmaceutical engineering.” The prize and $1000 honorarium will be awarded at the 2016 ACNS in Long Beach, CA, July 10-14, 2016.

Concentrated protein solutions present challenges for formulators of biopharmaceuticals as well as scientists investigating the cellular environment. A key scientific question in modern protein science concerns protein structuring in concentrated solutions and how this organization arises from molecular association to lead to anomalous transport properties. A signature feature of Dr. Godfrin’s investigations into concentrated protein solutions is the combination of SANS/USANS to determine solution microstructure, with complementary measurement of the dynamics in these concentrated solutions by neutron spin echo. Combined with theory and simulation, Dr. Godfrin was able to directly probe a new liquid state of matter, the clustered fluid, discovered both experimentally and theoretically within the past 20 years, and showed how this is relevant to our understanding of the stability and transport properties of concentrated protein solutions. Furthermore, Dr. Godfrin performed these experiments on globular protein solutions, which can be successfully used to test and validate our theoretical understanding of cluster liquids, as well as on model monoclonal antibodies provided by Genentech, which are directly relevant for biopharmaceuticals used for oncology treatment. In achieving these results, Dr. Godfrin collaborated with experts in simulation methods and fundamental theory to develop a new, universal state diagram that extends the Noro-Frenkel law of corresponding states to systems with competing short-range attraction and long-range repulsive interactions. In his doctoral research, which was conducted in part at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, Dr. Godfrin also contributed to the development of the novel 1-2 plane flow SANS sample environment commissioned both at the NCNR and ILL, Grenoble France. This unique sample environment enables directly probing the microstructure via SANS in shearing samples in the plane of shear.

Dr. Godfrin graduated from the University of Delaware in June of 2015, and is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His current interests include developing pharmaceutical formulations for encapsulation of monoclonal antibodies and hydrophobic small molecule drugs in hydrogel beads to control crystal size and bead morphology in order to engineer a specific drug release profile. UDaily Article

Dr. Yun Liu

National Institute of Standards and Technology & University of Delaware

Recipient of the 2016 Science Prize of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) with the citation “For the discovery of dynamic cluster ordering in complex colloidal systems using neutron scattering” The prize and $2500 honorarium will be awarded at the 2016 ACNS in Long Beach, CA, July 10-14, 2016 (http://www.mrs.org/acns-2016/).

Colloidal systems are found throughout nature and pervade our daily lives. They are used in foods, paints, personal-care products, biological systems such as blood or cellular components, and modern composite materials. The physics of these systems is typically dominated by very large surface areas, which amplify the importance of surface forces and thermal fluctuations. In the concentrated systems typical of most real-world applications, the underlying interactions usually exhibit many-body effects. Moreover, the geometry of the constituent “particles” can differ markedly from that of the uniform spheres that are usually invoked to model these systems. Dr. Yun Liu has performed ground-breaking research that greatly expands our understanding of colloidal systems well beyond those that can be described by simple models to complex fluids that are far more representative of those found in nature or used in industrial processes. In the process, he discovered dynamic clusters in concentrated protein solutions and related these to previously unexplained changes in viscosity that have profound implications for the production, purification, and administration of biopharmaceutical formulations.

Dr. Liu received his PhD in 2005 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a Research Associate Professor at the University of Delaware in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering since 2014, where he also holds an affiliated Research Professorship in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dr. Liu is currently a Staff Scientist in the SANS/uSANS
team, NIST Center for Neutron Research.