Objectives

1. Materials World Network: Temperature and Chemical Responsive Polymer Surfaces: Towards the Molecular Design of Intelligent Materials Evangelos Manias Pennsylvania State University DMR 0602877 Objectives Design, synthesis, and systematic study of “smart” water-soluble polymers that respond sharply and reversibly (first-order transitions) to temperature and/orpH changes, designed to have independently tailored onsets of response (T or pH). Accomplishments A series of copolymers with short hydrophilic segments (m-ethylene-oxide) alternating with hydrophobic(n-ethylene) and/or pH-sensitive (lysine) segments were designed (1,2) to exhibit sharp response at “any” temperature in water (example polymers with T-onsets from 10 to 75oC shown in left two figures), and in addition to respond to pH-changes (right-most figure). 1T. Foley, Ph.D. thesis, Penn State (2008)2 Kisselev & Manias, Fluid Phase Equilibria, 261, 69-78 (2007)

2. Materials World Network: Temperature and Chemical Responsive Polymer Surfaces: Towards the Molecular Design of Intelligent Materials Evangelos Manias Pennsylvania State University DMR 0602877 Education Outreach Recently graduated students who worked full-time on this NSF project: Ms. Andrea Fortunato (BEng, Materials, May ’o8; currently in Grad School at Umass, Amherst, Polymers) Mr. Alexei Kisselev (PhD, Physics, awarded Dec. ’o7) Ms. Theresa Foley (PhD, Materials, awarded May ’o8) Current students working full-time in this MWN project Mr. Charles Hogshead (PhD student, with partial support from a DoD fellowship), and Mr. Ngoh Manokruang (Ph.D. student, with partial support from an international fellowship). MWN visiting researchers (hosted at PSU, supported through the collaborative MWN partners) who worked also on this project: Dr. KS Andrikopoulos (AUTH); Dr. G Polizos (NTUA). Within the activities of this NSF MWN project we have engaged in a number of outreach activities, towards: K-12 and High-Schoolers: The PI, Ms. T. Foley, and Mr. C. Hogshead have been actively engaged in three (nittany science camp, girls utilizing science & technology, and nanotech summer camp, resp.) of the residential summer camps held at PSU, cf. residential hands-on camps addressed to PA K-12 and high school students. Minorities and Women: One minority under-graduate student was hosted within this project, through SROP (an REU-type “Summer Research Opportunities for minorities”, Ms. Rocio Gonzalez, SU07); and an opening for a WISER (“Women In Science and Engineering Research”) sophomore or freshman undergraduate student is open for FA08 [one previous WISER student in FA06]. Industry Outreach: Saint-Gobain, Kraft Foods, Dow, Air Products. International Activities With the emphasis on “broadening the horizons” of young US researchers, through establishing collaborations with their EU peers, a number of international exchanges have already been completed: Specifically, wehosted researchers from Greece, who did research in PSU in collaboration with our grad and undergrad students: Dr. G. Polizos (National Tech U Athens, 6 months), Dr. K.S. Andrikopoulos (Aristotle U Thessaloniki, 12 weeks), or who visited to discuss in depth the collaborative research and future-directions (Prof. I. Bitsanis, 5 days; Dr. A. Rissanou, 5 days). We alsovisitedthe collaborating institutes: Ms. A. Fortunato, MWN undergraduate student, 3 months in U Padova, Italy; E. Manias spent most of his sabbatical semester (FA07) in two of the MWN collaborating institutions (3 weeks in Aristotle U, and 2 months in FORTH, Crete); and Ms. T. Foley spent 4 weeks in FORTH, Crete. Further future visits are planned for the 2oo8-9 academic year: Mr. C. Hogshead is going to visit FORTH, for 4-6 weeks; and Dr. A. Rissanou from FORTH and Dr. K.S. Andrikopoulos from AUTH both plan to return to PSU for another month). Technologies Impacted  Anti-fouling  Stimulated release (chemical or medicinal substances)  Stimulated hydrophilicity change (self-cleaning surfaces)  Triggered (temperature, pH) wettability change  super-hydrophobic coatings  pH detection (incl. pH changes from chemical spills, food deterioration or contamination, etc)