**ADVANCED MATERIALS**

**AND**

**PROCESSING PROGRAM**

**(AMPP)**

**Report of NSF Panel**

**on**

**Areas of Opportunity**

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height="1.8111111111111111in"}

**January 12, 1995**

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**[Preface]{.smallcaps}**

In response to a Congressional request for information on the National
Science Foundation's plans for fundamental research and education in
areas benefiting national needs, the Foundation convened a panel of
experts from the advanced materials and processing communities to
identify research opportunities in the materials area. The panel
conducted a workshop on January 12, 1995.

Since we feel that it is important to share the results of the workshop
widely with those who are engaged in materials research and education as
well as with others who have an interest in this field, NSF decided to
publish the panel report.

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the report. In
addition, we invite the readers to comment on it since the report should
be viewed as part of the ongoing dialogue to define and develop enhanced
interaction between universities, national laboratories, and industry.

The opinions expressed in the report are those of the expert panel and
do not represent NSF policy.

William C. Harris Joseph Bordogna

Assistant Director Assistant Director

Mathematical and Physical Sciences Engineering

**[Executive Summary]{.smallcaps}**

This workshop brought together a balanced panel of industrial R&D
leaders and university and government laboratory scientists and
engineers (see attachment). The panel strongly reaffirmed the assertions
of previous, more extensive studies that advanced materials and
processing is entering a particularly productive phase. What animates
the interests of basic materials science and engineering faculty in our
universities also has the great potential to provide the knowledge base
and expertise that can be used by U.S. industry to innovate and produce
new products and processes that will give them a competitive advantage,
while at the same time addressing environmental and other
quality-of-life concerns.

The challenge to the workshop was not to identify all the areas that are
both scientifically exciting and have the potential for significant
impact, but rather to choose from the rich array of possibilities. The
attached description of the areas selected represent our judgment of
some of the best opportunities; but there are many other areas not
described here that have significant potential for scientific and
engineering advances and technological impact. Thus for materials
science and engineering in general, and the AMPP program in particular,
there is a strong connection between fundamental research and research
benefiting national needs. The challenge is to inform the research
community of the opportunities for longer term impact and then let their
curiosity and expertise determine the research programs they choose to
undertake. The proposals they submit should continue to be judged by
merit review, with the excellence of the proposed ideas remaining the
basis for support.

With the changing focus of industrial research (see attached statement),
it has become increasingly important that our nation\'s universities
perform the basic research needed for the longer term. To meet that
challenge effectively, the interactions between the researchers in our
universities and their counterparts in industry need to be strengthened,
and approaches need to be developed to ensure that the new knowledge
generated is made available to those who can use it in a timely manner.
Furthermore it is important that the longer term needs are continually
exposed to the researchers in our nation\'s universities, and thus this
workshop should be viewed as the first step in an ongoing process of
enhancing interaction between the university, national laboratory, and
industrial R&D communities.

The areas of opportunity which were selected by the workshop
participants were: Bio/Biomolecular Materials, Materials for the
Information Age, and Special Materials. For each area, the scientific
opportunities are described, the 5-year milestones are identified and
the potential areas of impact are indicated. The areas of impact clearly
reaffirm the key enabling role of advanced materials and processes for a
broad range of industrial innovations and quality-of-life advances. This
breadth of potential impact is further justification for a Federal role
in support of these programs since no single company and, in many cases,
no single industry will be the sole beneficiary from a specific advance.

This point is further elaborated on in the Industrial Perspective on
Advanced Materials and Processing statement which was crafted from the
views expressed by the industrial participants in the workshop.
Following that statement are brief descriptions of specific examples
(lasers, optical fibers, high temperature superconductors) of the
interplay between scientific advances and technological progress.
Finally, there is the list of participants and their affiliations.

**[Bio/Biomolecular Materials: Harnessing Nature\'s
Chemistry]{.smallcaps}**

**Overview**

The field of bio/biomolecular materials is an exciting new area at the
frontiers of materials research. It is based on the premise that Nature
has already done the critical experiments, and it is up to us to better
understand them and to learn how to profit from them.

> Three important areas of concentration are:
>
> \(1\) Products from living factories;
>
> \(2\) Bio‑inspired systems and processes; and
>
> \(3\) Biomaterials by design for use in healthcare.

Even though the field is in its infancy, several current technologies
attest to its promise, utility, and economic benefits. For example, we
now understand the fundamental biophysics of the light‑switching
protein, bacteriorhodopsin. Armed with this understanding, several
companies have developed holographic memories based on this biomolecule.
These memories have application in national security purposes, where
they could be used by low‑orbiting satellites to quickly check for
objects that have moved upon subsequent orbits of the satellite.

Another example is the production of bacterial cellulose, a process
originally studied by NSF-supported researchers. Bacterial cellulose has
superior water‑absorbing properties and is now used for a wide range of
applications, including medical sponges, enhanced‑quality paper, and
food bulking agents. The basic research and optimization were performed
at Cetus; applications were developed by Weyerhauser. It is interesting
to note that Ajinomoto performed completely parallel research and
development in Japan.

With these success stories as a platform, we now wish to outline three
major areas of opportunity in bio/biomolecular materials. We use the
concept of a cell as a factory for our central organizing principles.

![](media/image2.emf){width="2.352777777777778in" height="1.1in"}

biodegradable

products

In this analogy, DNA provides the management instructions. Various
enzyme, protein, etc., workers carry out these instructions, and various
intermediates are stored. Inputs to the factory are renewable resources;
the cell operates in an aqueous environment. Its outputs are
biodegradable materials and value‑added by‑products. The concept of a
cell as a factory conveys the low‑impact nature of bio‑ and bio‑inspired
processing.

**(1) Products From Living Factories**

**Technical Description:** Living systems manufacture an enormous range
of materials and chemicals. The synthetic processes of living factories
operate at ambient temperatures and pressures from low cost feedstocks
and with very little waste. Pioneers of industry are beginning to use
biological catalysts to gain the benefits of biosynthesis. The Nitto
Corporation (Japan) operates an enzyme‑based process that makes
polymer‑grade acrylamide without using toxic catalysts, and ICI
(England) manufactures pure 2-chloropropionic acid via an enzymatic
process. The U.S. materials industry is in the early stages of learning
how to utilize biological systems to produce articles of commerce. The
national need for new science and engineering to remain competitive in
this area is great.

Fortunately, the untapped opportunities are also enormous. Science has
only recently come to appreciate that biodiversity, the reservoir from
which examples of bioprocesses and bioproducts are drawn, is much
greater than generally appreciated. Less than 1% of the different
species that inhabit the earth have been described, or in any way
examined, for useful products. New science and engineering for exploring
these vast uncharted natural resources will certainly be rewarded with
both new materials and new catalysts. The new catalysts will in turn
enable more cost effective and environmentally friendly routes of
chemical synthesis.

Not only are there new opportunities to discover useful new catalysts,
but it is also possible to extend the performance characteristics of
natural biomolecules by using the technology known as \"directed
evolution.\" For example, the enzyme subtilisin has been quickly and
economically converted into a catalyst that is active in an organic
solvent, which greatly extends its utility. This ability to build upon
nature\'s tool kit should be systematically exploited to enhance U.S.
competitiveness.

**Milestones:**

-   Identify biochemical methods that will enable synthesis of new
    materials or materials intermediates;

-   Develop combinatorial methods for discovering new materials;

-   Develop methods for exploring the universe of biodiversity for new
    materials.

**Impact:** New biomolecules and biomaterials promise both financial and
quality of life benefits for society. Biocatalytic routes to monomers
are not only environmentally benign, but they will enable the economical
synthesis of highly functional polymers.

Bioprocesses are naturally well suited for use with feedstocks derived
from renewable resources, thus contributing to sustainable manufacturing
systems and reducing our national dependence on foreign oil.
Furthermore, biomaterials are generally biodegradable or completely
recyclable. This area has a high potential impact on energy production
and utilization.

In the realm of nano‑scale materials, biomolecules will have special
impact as a result of the high specificity of their molecule‑molecule
interactions. For example, one can envision nanoscale reactors and
sensors that are safe and reliable parts of artificial organs, depending
on the integrations of biomaterials with other high performance
materials. This area has a high potential impact on healthcare.

**(2) Bio‑Inspired Systems and Processes**

**Technical Description:** Nature is replete with systems and processes
which are highly efficient and developed for specific functions. Many of
these materials and chemicals exhibit valuable properties that greatly
exceed those of human-made products. An example of a highly developed
and efficient light weight package is the egg shell. Another example is
the strength of spider drag line silk, which rivals that of Kevlar.
Examples of efficient biological processes are the enzymatic catalytic
processes that are necessary for all life. Knowledge gained through
study of these systems and processes will be applied to provide improved
processes and engineered materials systems.

**Milestones:**

-   Develop sensor structures at interface between biological component
    and nanoscale semiconductor;

-   Define level of complexity in self assembling and self healing
    systems;

-   Extend usefulness of biomolecules by extending their range of
    stability through the use of directed evolution as applied to
    extreme thermophiles;

-   Develop robust biocatalysts for use in industrial processes;

-   Develop bioremediation strategies for cleaning up heavy/radio-active
    metals;

-   Develop engineering techniques for large scale bioprocessing and
    biomimetic processing.

**Impact:**

-   Analytical tools for improved sensing (environmental, resource
    exploration, etc.);

-   New enzymatic processes which revolutionize chemical and fuels
    processing toward valuable new products produced at low cost;

-   Development of a new class of bio-inspired, tertiary, complex
    materials.

**(3) Biomaterials by Design for use in Healthcare**

**Technical description:** Materials currently being used in prosthetic
and replacement applications are materials which were originally
designed for non‑biological applications. There are well documented
examples of implant failure or poor designs due to use of materials that
are not biologically compatible. There are recent advances in
biophysics, molecular biology, cell biology and materials design that,
if integrated, should enable the fabrication and design of materials
that would improve the structure and function of semi-synthetic body
components such as organs, skin, veins, ducts, joints and blood for use
in human patients. Products resulting from such research would improve
the quality of life and perhaps extend the life of healthcare patients
dealing with dehabilitating or life-threatening diseases.

**Milestones:**

-   Gain an understanding of what biological insults lead to material
    failure such as surface interaction, binding, and wear and tear
    response;

-   Gain an understanding of the structural demands needed for useful
    biocompatible prosthetic or replacement materials;

-   Develop improved materials, including bio-materials for specific
    applications.

**Impact:** The national impact would be improved quality of life for
patients dealing with life‑threatening diseases, including an
alternative non‑tainted blood supply. Also, advances in non‑invasive
medicine would be possible.

**[Materials for the Information Age]{.smallcaps}**

**Overview**

The simultaneous revolutions in computation, communications, displays
and storage have led to naming the present time in history the
Information Age. Rapid progress in these fields has been fueled by
materials and processing breakthroughs whose origins lie in the
knowledge base of materials science developed over the fifty year period
since the 1940\'s.

It is important to understand that the remarkable progress that we have
observed is only the beginning of the information revolution. We are
roughly at the position of the Wright brothers in the development of
aeronautics, or perhaps at the first flight of a commercial aircraft. It
is extremely important that the dramatic rate of improvement in the
technology made over the past 30 years be sustained. This will require
continued basic research, as the lead time between the discoveries of
research and their utilization in technology is generally a decade or
more. The history of key devices of the information age, such as the
transistor, laser, optical fiber and optical amplifier, illustrate
vividly the time required to gain commercial value from basic scientific
discovery.

All the technologies of the information age, ranging from silicon
integrated circuits to fiber, optoelectronics and displays, face
challenges as we attempt to continue the rapid progress of the last four
decades. Eventually technologies will approach limits set by the laws of
physics; for example, when devices become so small that they contain
only a few electrons, but before those limits are reached, the
challenges are likely to be both economic and technical. Examples are
the cost of silicon fabrication lines, or the lack of inexpensive very
large area flat panel displays. In this context, recent breakthroughs in
the growth of silicon transistors directly on high temperature glass
have generated totally new high quality displays. But these displays
have fundamental processing difficulties in increasing their sizes from
a few square inches to tens of square feet.

Every field, from transportation to medical technology has made rapid
progress based on the ever increasing cost effectiveness of
microelectronics. Much of the hope for productivity increases in
manufacturing and engineering are based on the improving performance of
information based tools. As the limits of current technology are
reached, new processes and materials must take the place of those which
are stagnating and the research to identify these new materials and
processes, as well as the characterization of the fundamental limits of
the old ones, must take place in the next few years in order that the
knowledge base be in place when it is needed.

The challenge is to anticipate and explore the \"limits\" to the
progress in electronics and determine what must be done to bypass those
"limits" in materials and processing, as we know them today. NSF should
support the basic research that provides the knowledge base necessary to
allow progress when presently predictable \"limits\" are reached. Some
of these \"limits\" are in the size, speed, cost, and power dissipation
of transistors; the size, power, and \"manufacturability\" of large area
displays; and the storage density, read and write time, and cost of
memories.

Two examples of promising areas of materials research that will impact
the future growth of the information age are the study of nanostructures
and the use of computers to model the properties of materials.

**(1) Nanostructures**

**Technical Description:** The first transistors were made of bulky
pieces of semiconductor materials and wire, millimeters to centimeters
in size. Today\'s transistors used in integrated circuits are less than
one micron in size, or roughly ten thousand times smaller. It is
anticipated that transistors in the not too distant future will be ten
times smaller still, and then even perhaps one hundred times smaller.
This progress in reducing the size of devices allows more of them to be
placed on a chip, which increases the functionality of the integrated
circuit, allowing at one time the greatly reduced cost of computing and
communications. Indeed, the greater than two-fold increase per year of
components in a silicon chip, often referred to as "Moore's Law", has
provided unparalled economic impetus that has allowed the development of
multi-megabit memories from single transistors in less than fifty years.

If the circuits that will be commonplace in twenty years are to work in
this land of extremely small dimensions, it is essential that laboratory
scientists blaze the trail by first becoming familiar with its terrain.
This analogy with exploration of the western United States by the
pioneers, before it could be extensively settled by society, is accurate
and important. It is essential that NSF support such explorations in a
land where devices become so small that they not only tax current
fabrication methods, but also exhibit qualitatively different
electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. These latter
may hold the key to circuits and devices that not only posess higher
functionality and greater density, but also offer performance
enhancements present only at these scales, such as suppression of noise
in optical devices. In order to realize those goals, we must develop the
requisite tools and probes to shape and characterize these tiny building
blocks of future electronic and optical technology.

**Milestones:** At present, commercially produced transistors have
minimum feature sizes of less than 1 micron (1000 nanometers). In
research laboratories, the production of structures with dimensions
between 100 to 500 nanometers is commonplace; devices with even smaller
dimensions have been made.

The objective for the next 5-10 years is to establish reliable,
reproducible means of fabricating arrays of uniform structures with
dimensions of 10 to 100 nanometers. Important fundamental properties of
these structures should be established, and the implications of these
properties on device performance should be investigated. Development of
the fabrication techniques needed will require both new fabrication
tools and new strategies, such as the utilization of "self-assembling"
structures.

The objective for the next 20 years is to continue to develop
fabrication and characterization techniques for structures at yet
smaller sizes: dimensions 1 to 10 nanometers in an integrated approach,
with the parallel development of circuit architectures that take
advantage of the unique properties of these nanostructures, and go
beyond the computing strategies currently used. One example is the
recently demonstrated mapping of a computational problem onto the
structure of DNA. Our ability to manipulate single atoms or clusters of
atoms should allow us to define similarly complex arrays onto which
computational problems can be mapped.

**Impact:** Scientific understanding of nanostructures, or more broadly,
the land where the size of devices approaches atomic dimensions, is
essential if past progress in information age technology is to continue.
Individual devices must be made smaller and be more closely packed in
order to continue the growth in complexity and functionality of
microelectronic circuits, at lower cost. The impact of continued scaling
down in size and increase in density needs to be understood, and new
strategies for reliable fabrication, and ultimately manufacture, must be
developed. Moreover, qualitatively different electronic, optical and
structural properties will characterize these nanostructures, and these
may be utilized in new device schemes and circuit architectures.
Research in this area will have impact in every part of the economy,
already dominated by the technology of the information age.

**(2) Modeling of Molecular Structures**

**Technical Description:** In the past, new materials have been
discovered by experimentation and intuition. One example is high
temperature superconductors, which were discovered by scientists
exploring oxides for their ferroelectric properties. For the search for
technologically valuable new materials to be more effective, one
approach is to make the experimentation more rapid by the simultaneous
use of many small samples with screening techniques, the other is to
make the prediction of the structure and properties more accurate. Thus
an important area is that of modeling molecular structures and their
electronic and optical properties

**Milestones:** Due to breakthroughs in the last five years, we can
currently model 100 atoms for 100 time steps, which is enough to explore
simple dynamic and electronic properties of small crystals. New
algorithms are being developed which are much faster than the old ones,
and computer power is also increasing at such a rate that, if properly
supported, we should be able to model 10,000 atoms for 1,000,000 time
steps within 5-10 years. This is enough to characterize the nanodefects
which determine the bulk physical properties of real materials. In 20
years, increased computational power will enable the modeling of
structures consisting of single atoms out to the level of millions of
atoms on realistic time scales, and will allow the materials designer to
predict the properties of materials over all dimension scales.

**Impact:** Development of modeling tools could well double the
effectiveness of materials research by revealing how nature really
assembles materials, and which approaches are feasible and which are
not. Even well before the knowledge and techniques are mature enough to
predict bulk properties, the ability to predict the behavior of defects,
grain boundaries and interfaces will be very useful since often they are
the limiting factors in the performance of materials. This impact of the
work will be on the improvement of present device materials, and later
in the more efficient prediction of valuable new materials.

**[Special Materials]{.smallcaps}**

**Overview**

In the process of identifying areas of opportunity in Advanced Materials
and Processing three were identified that had a different scope than the
Biomolecular and Biomaterials and Materials for the Information Age
areas. They have been grouped under the category of Special Materials.

In fact, this category can more broadly represent the various areas of
opportunity that did not make our final selection. As stated in the
Executive Summary, the major problem confronting the workshop was to
select from a large number of exciting research areas that have the
potential for longer term technological impact. The three chosen
represent a good cross-section of the types of materials and
opportunities.

The first one on carbon based materials includes areas that have had
recent exciting progress in their synthesis and where there is reason to
believe that further advances in understanding and controlling their
synthesis can result in many applications. This example can be
characterized as science driven. The second example of packaging
materials seeks to extend the significant progress made in understanding
polymers to achieve new properties required by packaging. This can be
viewed as being needs driven. Finally, the third example involves a well
established objective, improved fuel cells and the highly studied
phenomenon of electrochemistry. It seeks to define from an overall
systems perspective, including the materials used, what areas require
more fundamental understanding and engineering advances in order to
achieve enhanced performance.

**(1) Low Temperature and Pressure Synthesis of Carbon-Based Materials:
from Buckyballs to Diamond**

**Technical Description:** Although diamond and graphite are familiar
materials, it has only recently been realized that many forms of carbon
can readily be made near ambient conditions. Buckminsterfullerenes
(buckyballs) are large clusters (C~60~, C~70~, etc.) showing
superconductivity, intercalations, and possible catalytic properties.
Glassy carbon, carbon fibers, and porous graphite are made by controlled
pyrolysis of organic precursors. The control of porosity produces
materials with specific adsorption, filtration, and catalytic activity.
Now made by empirical processes, these materials need fundamental study
to understand better structure-property relations. Opportunities for
fundamental study include the following: tailoring of porosity by
understanding synthesis mechanisms, better understanding of gas
adsorption and the character of carbon surfaces and micropores,
understanding of catalysis, synthesis at low temperature of carbons
containing metals, organics, and other constituents, processing of
composites containing, for example, ceramic particles in carbon
micropores or carbon fibers in ceramics. A fundamental understanding of
the structural chemistry, electronic and physical properties, and
mechanical properties of carbon-based materials will provide new
lightweight materials and may lead to less expensive synthetic routes.

Low-Pressure-Temperature metastable synthesis of diamond for industrial
applications in machine tools, wear resistant surfaces (lo-friction and
bearing), and areas that require high strength and thermal properties,
is a good example of a strategic "materials" area that can be developed
by fundamental research in the next five years. It is an example with
possible extension to the production of strong ceramic materials in
general.

Diamond is unusual as a material in that it has the most extreme values
of thermal, mechanical optical, and chemical properties for application
in the harsh environments of industry and consumer applications. Recent
development has resulted in the ability to form diamond from methane and
other common gases at ambient pressure and relatively low temperature.
Diamond can now be coated as a film of various thickness (micron to
millimeter) on tools, bearings, and other wear surfaces. The processes
can also be used to deposit thick diamond to mold monolithic parts.

Areas of fundamental research that are needed include gaining an
understanding of the basic process itself and the interactions of
diamond with the deposition surface. The objectives of the research
include broadening the process to vary the character and properties of
diamond, to make the process more efficient, and to gain fundamental
knowledge of adherence of metastable diamond to metals, ceramics, and
plastics.

**Milestones:**

-   Develop an efficient process of plasma production of
    "diamond-formations" based on a fundamental understanding of the
    process:

> a\. Produce uniform polycrystalline diamond of controllable
> grain-size, thickness, and surface area to exceed 100 square inches;
>
> b\. Establish the laws of adherence of metastable diamond to metals,
> ceramics, and plastics;

-   Develop purity of metastable diamond and "near-diamond carbon" to
    meet strength and toughness requirements, optical clarity, and
    thermal conductivity;

-   Determine the properties of n-type and p-type semiconducting
    diamond;

-   Develop an efficient process to synthesize other similar materials
    of two components (such as carbon+nitrogen and boron+nitrogen) by
    the plasma deposition method;

-   Extend the techniques of diamond synthesis to the "plasma torch"
    whereby materials surfaces can be "spray-coated" with diamond;

-   Prepare graphites with sizes in the 5-10 angstrom scale;

-   Understand the electrical (and superconducting) behavior of
    fullerenes;

-   Investigate catalysis by carbons of different porosities;

-   Model (from fundamental theory) interactions of different sized
    pores with hydrogen, water, methanol, etc.;

-   Provide materials of controlled particle size and porosity as
    starting materials for composites.

**Impact:** The impact will be realized mainly in applications not
possible with any other materials. Buckyball-structured materials have
unique properties ranging from catalytic, electronic-superconducting to
strong materials with diamond-like properties. Many properties, and thus
applications have not been explored but promise to lead to such areas as
"molecular storage" functions, "molecular tubes", and carbon-ceramic
materials and templates.

Metastable diamond (coated) surfaces will lead to broad application of
heat-sinks and thermal management of advanced semiconductor devices, to
new high-strength bearings for down-hole petroleum drilling motors, and
other highly stressed bearing needs, to optical windows and lenses for
x-ray devices and electro-optical devices, to drills, cutting tools and
machine tools, and to a new generation of semiconductors.

The carbon-based materials are in most cases non-toxic and benign to
living things.

**(2) Food and Medical Packaging: Two Dimensional Composites**

**Technical Description:** Packaging for food and medicine is a
multi-billion dollar, multibillion pound, rapidly growing business. It
now faces sharply increased demands highlighted by universal in-kind
recyclability (as aluminum cans) and open-shelf storage of traditionally
refrigerated foods (e.g., milk, soups). Existing packaging systems use
multiple materials to achieve the needed functionalities, imparing their
recyclability. The familiar paper, foil and plastic juice-box is an
example. New materials and process understanding is needed to achieve in
a single polymer the required strength, barrier, uptake sealing and
aesthetic functionalities. Perhaps even more fundamental is the lack in
understanding of how the individual aspects can be optimally integrated
to achieve best package performance. There is no composites science of
packaging. The vision of success might be an optimally shaped, minimum
weight, single polymer container having all the other functionalities
generated by modifying its inner and outer surfaces.

**Milestones:**

Experimental studies, mathematical models and theoretical understandings
that quantitatively relate:

-   Small molecule (oxygen, carbon dioxide, water) permeability to
    polymer chemistry and microstructure;

-   Reactivity of chemical functionalities at polymer surfaces to the
    same functionalities in well-defined molecular species;

-   Absorption and adsorption of typical food flavorants and polymer
    species (and their simple molecular surrogates) to polymer surface
    chemistry.

Demonstration in some way that could prospectively be scaled to an
industrial process of:

-   Means to provide desired polymer-surface chemical functionality in
    ways that do not lead to environmentally adverse consequences;

-   Minimally-invasive characterization techniques that can reveal the
    needed aspects of real systems, at least some of which have the
    prospect of being developed into on-line process control;

-   In-kind recycling of packages so made.

**Impact:**

-   Packaging input to waste streams is reduced by several billion
    pounds;

-   US based packaging industry grows world-wide;

-   The volume of traditionally refrigerated food now sold in
    warm-storable form increases several fold, decreasing energy
    consumption accordingly.

**(3) Electrochemical Cells for Energy Conversion**

**Technical Description:** Conventional power plants and road vehicles
use air-polluting heat engines. Clean, silent, and controlled combustion
of fuels to produce electric power may be performed electrochemically.
Conversely, electrolysis cells use electric power to obtain value-added
chemical products including fuels such as hydrogen from water. A fuel
represents stored chemical energy; long-term energy storage is a basic
requirement for the emergence of alternate energy technologies.

Electrochemical energy conversion has not been competitive with the heat
engine for power plants and road vehicles because materials problems
have limited the efficiency of generating high power and the convenience
or speed of recharge. However, concerns over air pollution and our
growing dependence on foreign oil have stimulated a fresh look at the
materials problems, which have been highlighted by unsuccessful attempts
to find engineering solutions around them. The relatively inexpensive
search by a few individuals for new materials is now beginning to bear
good fruit, and a flowering of renewed interest in electrochemical
processes has begun. However, a fundamental focused effort in advanced
materials and processing is needed to sustain the movement in this
field. Such an effort should include:

-   the design of electrolytes, i.e., ionic conductors and electronic
    insulators, using crystalline solids, polymers, or composites
    consisting of polymer-liquid or ceramic-liquid combinations;

-   the design of insertion compounds that support mixed
    ionic/electronic conduction;

-   the investigation of ionic and electronic transport across
    interfaces that are beneficial, as opposed to corrosive, to the
    electrochemistry of a given process;

-   a study of the catalytic processes that control the rate and
    specificity of chemical reactions at interfaces (such studies would
    impact heterogeneous catalysis as well as electrocatalysis and
    photocatalysis, all processes fundamental to the processing of
    refined chemical products); and

-   the low-temperature synthesis and fabrication of complex composite
    structures containing interpenetrating, yet connected, phases with a
    large interfacial area.

An electrochemical cell contains two metallic electrodes separated by a
"separator" saturated with a liquid electrolyte; a solid electrolyte
also acts as the separator. The electrolyte is an electronic insulator,
but a good conductor of the "working ion" of the cell. During operation,
an [ionic]{.underline} [current]{.underline} through the electrolyte
inside the cell must match the electronic current passing between the
electrodes through an external load where useful work is performed. The
electrons and working ions are supplied by chemical reactions occurring
at the electrode-electrolyte-reactant interface.

The current delivered by a fuel cell is limited not only by cell design,
but also by the intrinsic rate of chemical reaction at the three-phase
interfaces and by the conductivity of the working ion in the electrolyte
and across its interfaces with the electrodes and reactants. In a
battery, the insertion/extraction of the working ion into/from an
electrode replaces the chemical reaction as the rate-limiting step at an
interface. Moreover, retention of the interface and of electronic
contact between particles of a porous electrode on repeated
discharge/recharge cycles through which the electrode particles change
volume present major cell-design and materials problems.

Liquids, liquid-polymer or liquid-ceramic composites, and polymers are
used as electrolytes in low-temperature cells. Liquid or polymer
electrolytes are required to maintain the electrode-electrolyte
interface in batteries with solid reactants; they may also be used with
gaseous or liquid reactants.

High-temperature fuel cells would use oxide-ion electrolytes;
unfortunately these solid ceramics require operation temperatures
greater than 800 ^o^C, whereas the protonic conductors are restricted to
lower temperatures less than 100 ^o^C, where fuel-cell reactions at an
interface tend to be slower than desired. There is a clear need to
develop electrolytes supporting fast proton or oxide-ion conduction at
intermediate temperatures. Nevertheless, the recent design of a superior
oxide-ion ceramic electrolyte now makes feasible the development of a
high-temperature fuel cell for stationary power generation. The
development of a room-temperature fuel cell capable of powering road
vehicles with a liquid fuel must await the identification of an anode
material capable of catalyzing a sufficiently rapid oxidation of liquid
methanol; at the present time, room-temperature fuel cells use pure
hydrogen gas as a fuel. Fostering long-term research to develop a
catalytic anode for methanol oxidation would prove to be a significant
strategic-research objective.

The availability of rechargeable batteries of higher power and energy
density promises to create a huge civilian and military market. The
development of suitable host materials for reversible lithium
insertion/extraction at both the anode and the cathode makes possible
lighter-weight lithium rechargeable batteries with sufficient power
density for a wide variety of applications. Exploitation of this
development has been initiated in Japan, where the anodes were
developed, and this commercial move has stimulated a worldwide activity.
The impact of this development will be felt within 5-years, and in
10-years it will represent a multibillion-dollar industry.

**Milestones:**

-   Commercialization of lithium rechargeable batteries with carbon
    anodes and oxide cathodes;

-   Feasibility demonstration of high-temperature solid-oxide fuel cell;

-   Progress on identification of a catalytic electrode for
    room-temperature methanol oxidation;

-   Progress on improved or lower-cost Lithium battery electrodes,
    oxide-ion electrolytes, medium-temperature proton electrolytes.

**Impact:** The social impact of the new electrochemistry will be
ubiquitous from medicine to portable power tools to distributed power
systems and, with good luck, electric cars. It will improve air quality
and make practical the use of alternate energy sources for the
generation of convenient fuels.

**[Industrial Perspective on Advanced Materials and
Processing]{.smallcaps}**

Most industrial products\--from automobiles to electronic displays\--are
built of materials: metals, semiconductors, glasses, insulators,
polymers, ceramics, and mixtures. New materials and new processes give
unique properties, new types of performance, and important advantages in
lower cost to the products derived from them, and competitive advantage
to the companies that own and use them.

The time required to go from the invention of new materials and
processes to commercial sales of components incorporating them is
usually long for two reasons. First, there are many steps to
commercialization\--invention, application, optimization, engineering,
and production. Second, there is a \"chicken and egg\" problem: it is
difficult to develop applications for a material until it is
commercially available, and commercial production is not justified until
there are applications.

In the past, universities and industry\--both defense and commercial
industry\--have shared in the invention of new materials in the U.S. In
the past decade the most monolithic large industrial laboratories have
become more narrowly focused, and have been joined by a loose network of
small companies that are taking on an increasing role in invention and
need not only the backing of academic fundamental research, but also
novel means to access it. Large industries that are not involved in the
production of materials in a major way are now largely moving away from
the *invention* and development of fundamental new materials to the
application of *existing* materials, for three reasons. First, the time
required to realize a financial return from R&D in this area is very
long (e.g., lasers, optical fibers, and high-temperature superconductors
described on the following pages). Second, since the area of application
of a new material is difficult to predict at the outset of the research,
there is no assurance that the company that makes this type of
investment will be the primary beneficiary of it (rather than a
competitor, or companies in some entirely different area). Third, the
defense sector\--historically a very important source of new
materials\--has decreased in size and changed in focus; it is now less
productive in terms of materials science.

There is, therefore, an *increased* requirement in the U.S. for research
in new materials and processing at universities. The opportunities in
science and technology for the discovery and development of
fundamentally new materials is excellent: the *need* for materials to
give unique properties, and performance to components remains high; the
*sources* of new materials from industry have decreased as the
opportunities of developing new materials based primarily on relevance
to national security have declined. NSF has the opportunity to play a
unique role in supporting this vital field, to contribute both to
fundamental understanding that underlies design and applications of
materials, and to the discovery and development of new materials for use
by U.S. industry. As stated in the Executive Summary, if such efforts
are to be effective, we need to develop new approaches to ensure that
the new knowledge that is generated will be made available in a timely
manner to those who can translate it into new technology.

**[Examples of Interplay Between Scientific Advances and Technological
Progress]{.smallcaps}**

**Lasers**

The laser, which is a key component of all optical fiber communications
systems but is also widely used in medicine, machining, compact disk
players and supermarket check out counters, is an interesting example of
the time, over 30-years in this case, that elapses between initial
scientific discoveries and their commercial impact.

The laser, first demonstrated in 1953, relied on a body of knowledge in
atomic physics that was gained well before that date. The laser, being
the optical analog of the maser, relied on decades of research in the
spectroscopy of solids and gases. Solid state lasers, first demonstrated
in 1960 in ruby, have their foundation in earlier knowledge of the
optical properties of defects and impurities in crystals. The first
continuous laser operated in a mixture of helium and neon gases in 1961.

The path to a semiconductor laser operating continuously at room
temperature was long and demanded major advances not only in
semiconductor science, but also in the growth and processing of layered
semiconductor structures, a field now known as "bandgap engineering", in
which materials are designed to have properties very far from those
found in bulk materials. Light-emitting diodes, operating first in
liquid nitrogen, were made in 1960. A laser structure operated in liquid
nitrogen in 1962, but it was 1970 before such lasers operated
continuously at room temperature, about 1975 before they could be used
in trials of optical communication systems. The widespread use of lasers
in CD players was proposed in 1985 for devices grown by molecular beam
epitaxy.

It is important to note that, for each of these devices, the necessary
knowledge base either had to be in place before the device could work,
or was developed by those trying to make it work. The foundation
knowledge has been traditionally supported by NSF in universities, the
specific knowledge has in the past been generated by large industrial
laboratories. However, with U.S. industry increasingly focusing its
laboratories on more immediate technologies, the attention of NSF on
basic research in strategic areas becomes all the more important.

**Optical Fibers**

Hundreds of thousands of miles of optical fiber cables now girdle the
globe - each containing several hair thin strands of glass millions of
times more transparent than even imagined possible three decades ago.
The physical and chemical understanding on which these achievements
depend - and the revolution in information technology they portend -
draws from virtually every discipline and spans many decades. But not
until 1970 was it demonstrated in the research laboratory that usable
optical signals could be sent as far as one kilometer. Today such
signals have successfully been transmitted and detected over tens of
thousands of kilometers. Even more important, the discoveries of the
early 1970's were rapidly transformed into commercially viable means to
produce strong, transparent and inexpensive fibers capable first of
hundreds then thousands and now millions of voice channels. Within the
last five years, physical and chemical sciences have given optical
communications another revolutionary boost. The optical amplifier, based
on remote optical excitation of rare earth ions doped into the few
micron diameter optical fiber core, has not only extended from hundreds
but to tens of thousands of kilometers, practical optical signaling
distances. It has virtually eliminated the need for the costly and
complex "regenerator" whose function is to transform optical signals to
electrical, and then to reshape, retime and amplify the pulses before
reconversion to the optical format for further transmission.

Regenerators have been the bane of undersea long distance, high-bit-rate
communication systems. The optical amplifier promises greater
reliability, lower cost and enhanced performance. And it rests clearly
upon our fundamental understanding of the behavior of rare earths in
glasses and upon the chemical knowledge required to incorporate these
recalcitrant ions into production optical fibers.

Understanding and control of the wavelength dependent absorption, delay
and nonlinear properties of glass materials and of wave guides has again
grown out of fundamental research in physical chemistry and condensed
matter physics. This understanding, together with discoveries in the
semiconductor physics of lasers and detectors, has made possible
"wavelength division multiplexing" (WDM). Simply put, it enables us to
multiply the information-carrying capacity of an optical fiber by N -
the number of distinct optical wavelengths which the system will
sustain.

Today commercial systems exhibit bit rates exceeding 1 Gb/sec.
Laboratory experiments are routinely surpassing this by over an order of
magnitude. Optical amplifiers and WDM are allowing optical technology to
expand at a rate exceeding one thousand fold per decade.

Although it might appear that most of this work took place in industrial
laboratories, two points are important to remember:

-   The knowledge base for these strategic research activities was
    largely generated by individual PI - university style research -
    ranging from energy levels in rare earths to the physics of the
    disordered state, strength and degradation modes of glasses, etc.;

-   The strategic research activities supported in industry of the sort
    we describe here have been greatly reduced in scope and time frame
    in the past few years. NSF or similar funding is thus of critical
    future importance.

**High Temperature Superconductors**

The importance of fundamental materials research, in which scientists
and engineers are supported to investigate new families of materials,
can be demonstrated most easily by pointing to the serendipitous
discovery of high temperature superconductors. The two scientists,
Bednorz and Muller, had begun research (with little management support!)
to determine the ferroelectric properties of oxides. Although their
particular interest was in ferroelectricity, their work resulted in the
discovery of superconductivity at temperatures most people considered
impossible. In fact, the generally agreed "limit" to the range of
superconductivity, say less than 25 Kelvin, was soon exceeded by a
factor of five. This is an example of how "limits" of current knowledge
are often overcome by the discovery of new materials.

The impact of this discovery is already being felt 8 years later, which
is a short time compared to the timescale of laser development, for
example. Products based on high temperature superconductors are already
being sold, and a number of small U.S. companies now employ roughly 400
people in an embryonic industry. Some experts have predicted markets of
\$150 billion by 2020 for this industry world wide.

Professor Peter Eisenberger (Co-Chair)

Princeton Materials Institute

Princeton University

70 Prospect Avenue, Room 320

Princeton, NJ 08540-5211

Professor George M. Whitesides (Co-Chair)

Professor and Chairman

Department of Chemistry

Harvard University

Cambridge, MA 02138

Dr. Peter M. Bell

Vice President Corporate Research

and Chief Scientist

Norton Corporation

P.O. Box 374

Galesville, MD 20765

Professor Robert P.H. Chang

Materials Research Center

The Technological Institute, Room 2033

Northwestern University

2145 Sheridan Road

Evanston, IL 60208-3116

Dr. Russell R. Chianelli

Senior Research Associate

Corporate Research Laboratory

Exxon Research and Engineering Co.

Annandale, NJ 08801

Professor John B. Goodenough

V.H. Cockrell Centennial

Professor of Engineering

Department of Materials Science

and Engineering, ETC5-160

The University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX 78712-1084

Professor Laura H. Greene

Loomis Laboratory of Physics

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1110 West Green Street

Urbana, IL 61801

Dr. Paul M. Horn

Vice President, Storage

Director, IBM Almaden Research Center

IBM Almaden Research Center

650 Harry Road

San Jose, CA 95120-6099

Professor Evelyn L. Hu

Director, QUEST

University of California at Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

Dr. Jennie Hunter-Cevera

Head of the Center for Environmental

Biotechnology

The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

Bldg. 50A, MS 4119

Berkeley, CA 94720

Professor Lynn Jelinski

Department of Biotechnology

Cornell University

130 Biotechnology Building

Ithaca, NY 14853

Professor Joseph A. Johnson

Distinguished Professor

of Science and Engineering

CeNNAs

Florida A&M University

1800-3 E. Dirac Drive, A337

Tallahassee, FL 32310

Professor Gretchen Kalonji

Department of Materials Science

& Engineering

Roberts Hall, FB-10

University of Washington

Seattle, WA 98112

Dr. Michael J. Kelley

Central Science & Engineering Laboratories

Experimental Station

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc.

P.O. Box 80304

Wilmington, DE 19880-0304

Dr. Robert A. Laudise

Director of Research

AT&T Bell Laboratories, Room 1A-264

600 Mountain Avenue

Murray, Hill, NJ 07974

Dr. Barry L. Marrs

Industrial Biocatalysis

7 Possum Tree Lane

Kennett Square, PA 19348

Professor Carolyn W. Meyers

Associate Dean and Associate Professor

of Mechanical Engineering

Georgia Institute of Technology

College of Engineering

Atlanta, GA 30332-0360

Professor Alexandra Navrotsky

Dept. of Geological & Geophysical Sciences

Princeton University

Princeton, NJ 08544

Dr. Glen H. Pearson

Polymer Processing

Eastman Kodak Company

Building 2, Kodak Park

Rochester, NY 14652-4713

Dr. S. Thomas Picraux

Sandia National Laboratories

Department 1102, MS 0350

P.O. Box 5800

Albuquerque, NM 87185

Dr. John M. Rowell

Vice President & Chief Technical Officer

Conductus

969 W. Maude Avenue

Sunnyvale, CA 94086

Professor Michael G. Spencer

Howard University

School of Engineering

MSRCE, Room 1124

2300 6th Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20059

Dr. Kevin R. Stewart

President & CEO

Molecular Optoelectronics Corporation

877 25th Street

Watervliet, NY 12189

Dr. Michael P. Teter

Corning Glass Works, FR-5

Sullivan Park

Corning, NY 14831

Dr. David N. Wormley

Dean, College of Engineering

Pennsylvania State University

101 Hammond Building

University Park, Pennsylvania 16802

OMB 3145-0058

P.T.: 34

K.W.: 1002000

0600000

1003000

**NSF 95-140**