I-Corps: Software to enable use of robotic liquid handlers to produce synthetic polymers

Award ID: 2037751

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project lies in the fact that advances in polymer science are a driving force for many technologies. Access to advanced polymers with tailored material properties remains limited to larger companies who can employ teams of in-house chemists. In contrast, small companies and research groups commonly lack the resources to have dedicated chemistry staff, which restricts their ability to develop and access useful materials that are critical for their technology and research. While these groups can attempt to source advanced polymers from the market, their options remain limited as on-demand and custom polymer synthesis remains too costly or labor intensive for companies to adopt. Team Plexymer is looking to use automated polymer synthesis technology to bridge this gap and enable smaller companies and research groups to access advanced polymer materials, empowering and accelerating their ability to develop tomorrows technologies. This I-Corps project aims to combat the labor intensive and costly effort required to synthesize and test new polymeric materials. Polymers are commonplace in wide variety of industries due to their material diversity and utility in different products ranging from plastics and surface coatings to pharmaceutical formulations. While the potential uses of polymers continue to rapidly expand, synthesis and analytical testing remain painstaking, manual processes. To address this unmet need for custom polymer synthesis, the team has developed software to direct liquid handling robotic platforms that carry out on-line polymer chemistry and material analytics. So far, prototype efficacy has been demonstrated by successfully synthesizing high quality polymers as well as carrying out multi-step synthesis and chemical modification procedures. Utilizing this technology, batches of up to 96 unique polymer materials can be synthesized simultaneously and have reduced the time required for synthesis and labor by 80%. The team is collaborating with chemical companies to discover novel polymers for pharmaceutical formulations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman