North Dakota State University

Ample resources are available at NDSU to carry out the goals of the program. The Department of Coatings and Polymeric Materials is housed in new state of the art laboratory facilities in the NDSU Research and Technology Park. The Department of Chemistry is housed in Ladd and Dunbar Halls and Mechanical Engineering is located in Dolve Hall on the NDSU campus. Basic equipment required for the laboratory synthesis of the monomers and polymers such as glassware, rotovap, etc. are available.

The department of Coatings and Polymeric Materials has industry-standard equipment for the preparation and characterization of coatings. This includes a spray booth, drawdown equipment, and equipment for carrying out coatings testing including pencil hardness, Konig pendulum hardness, crosshatch adhesion, pull-off adhesion, film thickness, gloss, color, abrasion resistance, and so on. The department also has several cabinets for corrosion testing under B117 salt spray and Prohesion protocols. Electrochemical test methods for studying corrosion are also available.

The materials processing, characterization, and mechanical testing equipment available in the Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department at NDSU will be fully utilized in the proposed research project and are summarized as follows:

The Electron Microscopy Center at NDSU houses TEM and SEM systems and equipment for sample preparation. Available microscopes include a JEOL JEM-100 CX TEM and a JEOL JEM-2100 analytical TEM as well as a JEOL JSM-6490LV variable pressure SEM and a JEOL JSM-7600F FESEM. Both SEM systems have an x-ray analysis accessory.

The department houses several multinuclear NMR spectrometers including a 500 MHz Varian Inova and a 400 MHz Varian Inova.

High Performance Computer (HPC) cyberinfrastructure at NDSU is managed and operated by the Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology (CCAST). CCAST is a research unit within the Office for the Vice President for Research, Creative Activities, and Technology Transfer which (1) provides HPC infrastructure for the entire NDSU Campus and NDSU Research and Technology Park, and (2) directly engages in pursuing scientific discovery, via use of computational tools, in the areas of energy, materials, environment, genomics, health, and in other areas of national priority. Networking at NDSU is managed and operated by NDSU Information Technology Services (ITS) which also participate in state and national initiatives to provide state-of-the-art networking capabilities to the entire upper-Midwest region.

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

The instrumentation toolset available at the University of Georgia New Materials Institute specializes in polymer and composite analysis with a focus on understanding the performance of new materials during processing, service life and end-of-life. Our team’s unique approach to partnerships with industry and our motivation to solve the world’s most pressing problems with incumbent plastics are central to the processing equipment and characterization instrumentation roster in our facilities.

Additionally, the UGA Office of Research provides an array of complementary Core Facilities and Research Services that are available to researchers at UGA, other universities, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and industry.

The UGA New Materials Institute primarily operates out of the Riverbend Research Laboratory complex, where approximately 3,500 square feet of laboratory space is dedicated to research and development efforts on new and existing materials used in single-use and coatings applications.