News from the NNI Community - Research Advances Funded by Agencies Participating in the NNI

Researchers at MIT have engineered a composite made mostly from cellulose nanocrystals mixed with a bit of synthetic polymer. The organic crystals take up 60¬90% of the material – the highest fraction of cellulose nanocrystals achieved in a composite to date. The researchers tested the material’s resistance to cracks and found that, across multiple scales, the composite’s arrangement of cellulose grains prevented the cracks from splitting the material. This resistance to plastic deformation gives the composite a hardness and stiffness at the boundary between conventional plastics and metals.

Some optical sensing chips contain nanostructures that are nearly as small as the biological and chemical molecules they are searching for. These nanostructures improve the sensor's ability to detect the molecules, but because they are so small, they cannot easily guide the molecules to the correct area of the sensor. Now, researchers at the University at Buffalo and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories have created a new sensor that takes aim at this problem. The design of the sensor, with its layers and cavities, creates what researchers call a "nanopatch antenna." The antenna both funnels molecules into the cavities and absorbs enough infrared light to analyze biological and chemical samples.

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has demonstrated tiny concentric nanocircles that self-assemble into an optical material with precision and efficiency. The researchers used a technique to coax diverse blends of polymers and nanoparticles into spontaneously forming tiny nested rings within minutes of adding an impurity, such as a small organic molecule, to the mix. The new findings could enable the large-scale manufacturing of multifunctional nanocomposites.

Metamaterials, made up of small, repeated nanostructures, engineered to produce desired interactions with light or sound waves, can improve optical devices used in telecommunications, and imaging. But the functionality of the devices can be limited by the corresponding design space. Now, researchers from Penn State and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories have leveraged three dimensions of design space to create and test a metamaterial with robust optical properties.

For the first time, a research group at the University of Maryland, in collaboration with other researchers from the United States and Canada, has created multi-elemental ordered intermetallic nanoparticles, with up to eight different metals. These nanoparticles, which are between 4 and 5 nanometers in diameter, are composed of metals in definite proportions, as opposed to alloys, which have metals in variable proportions. Also, the properties and crystal structure of these nanoparticles are different from the properties and crystal structures of their constituents.

An international team of researchers has discovered that Schwann cells – which are abundant in the peripheral nervous system and create a protective sheath around nerve fibers – play an essential role in migraine pain. The researchers successfully blocked pain evoked by a protein in the nervous system, called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), by using nanoparticles containing a small molecule drug that binds to and blocks CGRP receptors. In Schwann cells, the nanoparticles carried the drug inside the cells and blocked CGRP receptors, which strongly inhibited migraine pain.

Researchers at Georgia State University have developed an influenza vaccine made with nanoparticles that can be administered through the nose. This intranasal vaccine contributed to multifaceted immune responses, leading to robust cross protection against influenza in mice. These comprehensive immune responses and cross protection were long lasting, exhibiting defense from influenza virus over six months after immunization.

Researchers at Louisiana State University have revealed how carbohydrates interact with the aromatic polymer lignin to form plant biomass. The researchers examined the nanoscale assembly of lignocellulosic components in multiple plant species, including grasses, hardwood species, and softwood species. This new information could help advance the development of better technology to use biomass for energy and materials.

Scientists at Rice University are using machine-learning techniques to streamline the process of synthesizing graphene from waste through flash Joule, which consists of blasting a jolt of high energy through the source material to eliminate all but graphene. The researchers used these techniques to improve graphene crystallization from four starting materials ­­– carbon black, plastic pyrolysis ash, pyrolyzed rubber tires and coke ­­– over 173 trials, using Raman spectroscopy to characterize the starting materials and graphene products.

Using a novel polymerization process, chemical engineers at MIT have created a new material that is stronger than steel and as light as plastic and can be easily manufactured in large quantities. The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, which form one-dimensional, spaghetti-like chains. Until now, scientists had believed it was impossible to induce polymers to form 2D sheets. Such a material could be used as a lightweight, durable coating for car parts or cell phones, or as a building material for bridges.