Duke Part of $19.8 Million NSF Investment in Polymer Network Science

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing $19.8 million in a Duke-led research center that explores the science of polymer networks: long, repeating molecules found in a broad range of materials and products from trees to tires to plastics.  

The NSF Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks (NSF MONET) will receive the funding over five years from the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation program, which focuses on major challenges in fundamental chemistry that require substantial teams and years of effort.  

“NSF MONET has been an amazing opportunity to bring together some of the most creative and innovative scientists from across the country to work together on important problems,” says Stephen Craig, NSF MONET principal investigator and William T. Miller Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Duke. NSF MONET's senior investigators team also includes Michael Rubinstein, Aleksandar S. Vesic Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry and Physics. 

The National Science Foundation first provided seed funding to NSF MONET in 2018, further scaling it up in 2021. With this new five-year investment, NSF MONET will continue to advance its pioneering work on complex networks of polymer molecules. 

The properties of polymer networks are exceptionally challenging to understand and predict because every molecular twist, turn and tangle interacts dynamically with others. NSF MONET has made substantial progress in understanding the oftentimes counterintuitive properties of these networks. For example, NSF MONET published new findings in June showing that the impact resistance of some common polymers could be strengthened, paradoxically, by creating weaker bonds within the material, thus allowing energy to dissipate with less damage.

Craig emphasizes that the long-term potential of NSF MONET’s work extends beyond understanding these complex materials. Researchers aim to develop cost- and time-efficient methods for optimizing network compositions, with the goal of creating more durable, longer-lived materials that will reduce the production of bulk and microplastic waste, enable end-of-life recycling and have properties tailored to their intended use. 

“In NSF MONET, we’ve learned ways in which very modest chemical modifications — in some cases as small as 1 atom out of every 1,000 — can rewrite long-standing performance rules of functional polymer materials, and we’ve developed AI-enabled computational and data methods to accelerate future discovery in the field,” Craig explains. “There is so much more molecular behavior to explore, and we are excited to have five additional years to build on our past discoveries.” 

The investment will support research at NSF MONET’s eight institutions of higher education across seven states, as well as educating and providing specialized training for more than 30 students and early-career researchers, as part of NSF's mission to support and grow the U.S. scientific workforce.

Learn more about the NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation on NSF's website.