Synthesis of Perdeuterated Monomers and Polymers to Enhance Broadband Transparency for Plastic Optics

About This Grant

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Jeffrey Pyun and Professor Jon Njardarson from the University of Arizona (UA) will develop and advance novel synthetic methods to prepare monomers and polymers using deuterium chemistry. Deuterium is a naturally occurring stable isotope of hydrogen, the incorporation of which into polymers has the potential to create a revolutionary class of plastic optics with vastly improved transparency across the visible (VIS) and infrared (IR) spectrum. Currently, there remains a critical need in US defense and consumer sectors (automotive and construction) for low cost, optical glass materials that are transparent across the VIS-IR spectrum. State-of-the-art systems solely rely on heavy, expensive inorganic materials and would tremendously benefit from the creation of an alternative, low cost, light-weight plastic optical material. Hence, the UA team will explore new deuteration chemistry to prepare novel molecules and polymeric materials with the highly desirable combination of high transparency across the VIS-IR spectrum, lightweight, and robust mechanical properties over a range of temperatures. The broader impacts of the project are significant as the technological impacts of this work are far reaching, benefiting US defense systems reliant on IR optical systems, along with the pharmaceutical and nuclear energy sectors that are already heavily invested in new deuteration chemistry. Furthermore, the project will create new opportunities to engage large cohorts of undergraduate students (20-30 per semester) with research experiences in the chemical and polymer sciences via a multi-tiered training model to maximize on effective workforce training for next-generation scientists and engineers. To address the technical challenges of this project, Pyun and Njardarson will develop new synthetic chemistry and polymerization processes to replace all the hydrogen atoms in selected optical plastic materials with atoms of the stable isotope form of hydrogen, known as deuterium. This will require the creation of new synthetic chemistry using alternative deuterated starting materials to prepare these wholly deuterated molecules and perdeuterated polymers using cost-efficient, scalable methods suitable for industrial translation. Earlier work in this area has only been successful with a very narrow subset of molecules and polymers, all of which use prohibitively expensive materials and methods. Hence, the project will focus on developing this new fundamental chemistry which will have profound effects on the optical transparency of the resulting polymeric materials and afford a new class of VIS-IR broadband plastic optics. 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.