Tiny crystals, huge impact — NSF launches new nanocrystals research center
The newest NSF Center for Chemical Innovation will create AI-based technologies to rapidly identify nanocrystals with potentially useful properties for biomedicine, electronics, fuel production, chemical manufacturing and more
Imagine microscopically tiny particles purpose-built to do particular jobs, like precisely targeting and killing harmful cancer cells or dramatically increasing the efficiency of industrial chemical manufacturing. Those potential innovations require understanding the largely unknown properties of nanocrystals, which are the focus of a new $20 million U.S. National Science Foundation Center for Chemical Innovation. The NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design (NSF CSENND) will study and characterize individual nanocrystals with greater speed and in far greater numbers than has previously been done.
Identifying nanocrystals with potentially useful properties is a daunting challenge. Nanocrystals are thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair, and over a quintillion (a billion billion) could be contained in a tablespoon. Led by Indiana University, NSF CSENND will develop high-throughput, artificial intelligence-based technologies to rapidly screen nanocrystals in large numbers, revealing their distinct properties based on each individual crystal's composition and crystalline shape. NSF CSENND will share its methods with other U.S. researchers and industry partners to scale up national capacity to discover and design nanocrystals with applications in biomedicine, electronics, fuel production, chemical manufacturing and other areas.
"Nanocrystals are like a microscopic goldmine of molecular treasures," says NSF Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences David Berkowitz. "The NSF Center for Single-Entity Nanochemistry and Nanocrystal Design will be a unique scientific resource in the U.S. by creating AI-based capabilities to rapidly explore and pinpoint individual nanocrystals with valuable properties."
NSF CSENND is funded through the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation program, which supports research centers focused on major, long-term challenges in fundamental chemistry. Two additional NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation will receive renewed funding of $18-20 million each: the NSF Center for Synthetic Organic Electrochemistry and the NSF Center for Genetically Encoded Materials. In total, the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation program funds six major, multi-institutional research centers and several smaller incubator centers.
Beyond conducting fundamental chemistry research with broad industrial applications, the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation are responsible for growing the U.S. scientific workforce. Each year, the centers collectively serve as training grounds for hundreds of students and early-career researchers from dozens of U.S. institutions, providing opportunities to work and learn at the frontiers of chemistry research using specialized facilities and instruments in highly collaborative, interdisciplinary teams.
Breakthroughs achieved previously at the centers have provided the scientific basis for potential innovations that can yield economic and competitive advantages for the U.S. Such breakthroughs include understanding how polymer networks degrade and break (think of the rubber in your car's tires), how chemical reactions broadly used in pharmaceutical production can be done more efficiently and cheaply by using electricity rather than expensive chemicals, and how nanoparticles can be used to create antifungal agents to protect crops. Reflecting the central nature of chemistry in the U.S. economy, the centers also receive support and partner with the pharmaceutical industry, plastics manufacturers and others.