Award Abstract # 2223785
EFRI ELiS: Mechanically Adaptive Living Structural Materials

NSF Org: EFMA
Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI)
Recipient: CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date: September 16, 2022
Latest Amendment Date: July 1, 2024
Award Number: 2223785
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Steven Peretti
speretti@nsf.gov
 (703)292-4201
EFMA
 Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI)
ENG
 Directorate for Engineering
Start Date: September 1, 2022
End Date: August 31, 2026 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $2,000,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $2,012,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2022 = $2,000,000.00
FY 2024 = $12,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Jingjie Yeo (Principal Investigator)
    jingjieyeo@cornell.edu
  • David Erickson (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Christopher Hernandez (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Chelsea Heveran (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Sara Bronin (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Christopher Hernandez (Former Principal Investigator)
  • Jingjie Yeo (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Cornell University
341 PINE TREE RD
ITHACA
NY  US  14850-2820
(607)255-5014
Sponsor Congressional District: 19
Primary Place of Performance: Cornell University
341 PINE TREE RD
ITHACA
NY  US  14850-2820
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
19
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): G56PUALJ3KT5
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Cellular & Biochem Engineering,
EFRI Research Projects
Primary Program Source: 01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 1757, 9251
Program Element Code(s): 149100, 763300
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.041

ABSTRACT

The manufacturing and application of materials used in construction and building materials is energy intensive, generating substantial costs in dollars and carbon emissions. At the same time, building operations themselves are energy intensive, especially when it comes to heating and cooling. In the coming decades, there will be a need for new, more sustainable, and higher-performing building materials. The long-term goal of this project is to establish the technology for building materials that are less energy intensive during manufacturing and also reduce the costs of heating/cooling over the lifetime of the completed building. The specific goal of this project is to enhance the performance of sustainable materials used for insulation by increasing the ability of the material to contribute to the structural demand. In addition to technical achievements, the proposed work includes consideration of the legal challenges associated with the incorporation of such materials into building codes. Additionally, this project establishes a graduate level course for the emerging field of ?Engineered Living Materials? that will include cross-campus instruction among the participating universities. Insights from the proposed work will be integrated into educational programs for middle school and high school students from underrepresented groups at each of the participating universities.

The proposed research advances technology related to sustainable living building materials by creating materials that adapt to mechanical stresses during use by increasing density and stiffness at regions of greatest mechanical demand. The project focuses on the development of mechanically induced biomineralization in hempcrete, a sustainable building material with negative carbon emissions. The proposed work will advance knowledge in the field of living building materials by establishing the fluid environment necessary for nutrient delivery to resident microbes and the changes in chemical environment associated with ureolytic biomineralization within confined spaces of the living building material. A transformative aspect of the proposed work is the use of mechanically sensitive bacteria that alter the density and stiffness of the building material only at locations of greatest mechanical stress, increasing density and mechanical properties at needed locations while maintaining less dense regions with better insulative capacity This project includes 1) multiscale modeling to determine the transport of nutrients and waste products generated during biomineralization within microscale pores within a living building material, 2) fabrication of test beds of mechanically sensitive organisms using an existing sustainable building material that can benefit from enhanced mechanical performance (hempcrete), and 3) analysis of the legal implications of living building materials, which, unlike other building materials, are purposely designed to change their mechanical performance.

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.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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Heveran, Chelsea M. and Hernandez, Christopher J. "Make engineered living materials carry their weight" Matter , v.6 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2023.07.023 Citation Details
Yan, Zhongyu and Yeo, Jingjie "Competing mechanisms in bacterial invasion of human colon mucus probed with agent-based modeling" Biophysical Journal , v.123 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2024.05.028 Citation Details
Zhai, Hanfeng and Hao, Hongxia and Yeo, Jingjie "Benchmarking inverse optimization algorithms for materials design" APL Materials , v.12 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0177266 Citation Details
Zhai, Hanfeng and Yeo, Jingjie "Computational Design of Antimicrobial Active Surfaces via Automated Bayesian Optimization" ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering , v.9 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsbiomaterials.2c01079 Citation Details
Zhai, Hanfeng and Yeo, Jingjie "Controlling biofilm transport with porous metamaterials designed with Bayesian learning" Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials , v.147 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmbbm.2023.106127 Citation Details
Zhao, Liming and Arias, Sandra L and Zipfel, Warren and Brito, Ilana L and Yeo, Jingjie "Coarse-grained modeling and dynamics tracking of nanoparticles diffusion in human gut mucus" International Journal of Biological Macromolecules , v.267 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.131434 Citation Details

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