Category Archives: News

Neutrons are far too tiny for the human eye to see, but they can help us “see” deep into matter and determine the properties of materials at the subatomic level.

Neutrons can behave like microscopic magnets, diffract like waves, or set particles into motion, revealing properties not available using other probes or imaging techniques.

More than 100 scientists and engineers came to the University of Delaware on Wednesday, Nov. 4, to learn about the latest developments in this technology at the fourth annual Neutron Day.

The event, “Solving Real-World Problems with Neutrons,” was held in collaboration with the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), a national resource for industry, universities, and government agencies.

Professor Norman Wagner presenting research using neutron scattering at Neutron Day.

Directed by Norman J. Wagner, UD’s Center for Neutron Science is a cooperative agreement between the University and the NCNR that supports over 30 faculty, students and scientists between the two institutions in cooperative research, instrumentation development and education.

“Our partnership with UD is extremely important to NIST in broadening our scientific base, improving our instrumentation, and furthering neutron science,” said NCNR director Dan Neumann. “It’s critical that we have a window to the outside in identifying real-world needs and problems.”

The day-long program featured 10 technical talks by presenters from UD, NIST, and industry, as well as some 30 student posters on topics from methane conversion to disease detection.

Students represented not only UD but several other universities as well, including Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, the University of Maryland, and Indiana University.

“We are very fortunate to have such close ties with NCNR, which provides world-class capabilities in terms of both staff and physical infrastructure,” said Wagner, who is the Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chaired Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD. “This technology is helping to unlock the secrets of materials at the atomic level and providing the foundation to tailor them for a broad range of medical, energy, environmental, and manufacturing applications.”

Neutron Day was sponsored by UD’s College of Engineering, Center for Neutron Science, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Using STF-ArmorTm and Self-Healing Polymers

NASA EPSCoR Stimuli Highlight 2016-2017: Melisssa Gordon and Prof. Norman Wagner of the University of Delaware, and Willie Williams, NASA, Johnson Space Center

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.

National Academy of Engineering elects UD’s Norman Wagner — Norman J. Wagner, a University of Delaware engineering professor noted for his groundbreaking research in fluid mechanics and molecular thermodynamics, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering.

Wagner, the Robert L. Pigford Chaired Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD, is among NAE’s 67 new members and 12 foreign members.

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature, and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.

“We welcome Norm Wagner’s election to the National Academy of Engineering, a well-deserved honor that recognizes an outstanding career that has encompassed research, innovation, entrepreneurship and education,” said Babatunde Ogunnaike, dean of the College of Engineering. “This is a good day for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the College of Engineering, the University of Delaware, and indeed the entire state of Delaware.” Read more…

The University of Delaware’s first “Neutron Day” symposium in 2012 drew about 30 participants. This year, the event attracted more than 100 attendees, reflecting the rapidly expanding use of neutron scattering as a research tool.
Neutron scattering, which shows the location and behavior of atoms, allows researchers to see in real time how material structure changes with variations in temperature, pressure, and magnetic or electronic fields.

The technology supports the development of new materials for a broad range of applications from drug delivery systems to nanostructured membranes for environmental and energy applications, superconducting cables, and solar cells.

The one-day event at UD brought leading scientists and engineers from the University’s Center for Neutron Science together with more than 30 scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). The group, which also included industrial scientists, met to discuss new areas of neutron scattering science, with an emphasis on strengths in complex fluids, macromolecular science, and condensed matter physics.

The program featured seven technical talks and more than 25 posters.

In welcoming the participants, Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, dean of the UD College of Engineering, talked about UD’s new Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory (ISE Lab), which is enabling new work in microscopy, materials characterization, and nanofabrication.

Norman J. Wagner, director of the Center for Neutron Science, said that the center grew out of ongoing efforts at UD and NIST and strong collaborations between the two institutions. “We actually have a UD-South at NIST’s facility in Gaithersburg,” he said. “Faculty, postdocs, graduate students, engineers and scientists in residence are not only advancing the science there with NIST researchers but also serving as a bridge back to UD.” Read more…

• Doug Godfrin, jointly advised by Norman Wagner and Yun Liu was awarded the NIST Sigma Xi Most Outstanding Poster Presentation Award for Biotechnology, Biology, and Polymers. His poster, entitled: “Cluster Mediated Dynamics and Viscosity in Concentrated Protein Solutions” will be posted in the NIST Main Admin building for two weeks.
• Congratulations to Jingsi Gao, a graduate student at the University of Delaware, who won Second Place in the student poster session at the Society of Rheology’s 86th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. The title of her poster is “Rheology of dispersions in ionic liquids” with Dr. Mark Shiflett and Dr. Norman Wagner.
• Congratulations to Doug Godfrin, a graduate student at the University of Delaware who is stationed at NCNR, who won a poster prize for his high impact work on Monoclonal Antibody Characterization at the American Conference on Neutron Scattering.
• University of Delaware Professor Norman Wagner was selected as a fellow of the Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA)
• Congratulations to Yun Liu, material physicist in the SANS group at NIST Center for Neutron Research and a research assistant professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, for being selected to receive the 2014 NIST-Sigma Xi Katharine B. Gebbie Young Investigator Award! Yun is being recognized “For the discovery of dynamic cluster ordering in complex colloidal systems.”