TOP STORY

Richard Wool:  In Search of Green Engineering Solutions to Global Warming
By Diane Kukich

Bio-based materials are all made from renewable sources, and many have a double benefit in that actually make use of waste resulting from other processes and industries.  Chicken feathers, for example, are an abundant and otherwise useless by-product of the poultry industry, totaling some six billion pounds annually.

Wool has close to a dozen ongoing projects on bio-based materials and their applications.  One involves the development of a circuit board made from soybeans and chicken feathers, which was exhibited last March at the Science Museum in London.
“The chicken feathers provided a solution to the problem of thermal expansion mismatch between the metal wires and the epoxy board traditionally used in these devices,” Wool says.  “With chicken feathers, we get a perfect match in the thermal expansion co-efficient.  And the materials used in the circuit boards are not only renewable but plentiful in Delaware.”

Wool and his research team are also making carbon microtubes with chicken feathers.  “These materials, which are made by pyrolyzing the downy feathers, are quite remarkable,” he says.  “They have moduli similar to those of carbon, but they’re hollow, so they’re very lightweight, and they form a good interface with the matrix.”  Applications for the tiny tubes include hydrogen storage and pollution absorption as well as reinforcement for high-performance composites.

In addition, Wool is working on a number of other bio-based products, including a replacement for the urea formaldehyde used in fiberglass insulation, foams that can be used for roof insulation or tissue scaffolds, and hurricane-resistant housing. 
He is also a big proponent of integrating functionality.  For example, he points out, solar energy panels could be integrated into hurricane-resistant roofing, with all of the materials derived from biomass.

“If Delaware is going to get into the wind farm business,” he says, “let’s do it with bio-based materials—for example, turbines made from all-natural composites.  And if we’re going to contribute to the rebuilding of Katrina-damaged areas, let’s do it with hurricane-resistant bio-based materials to reduce the impact on the environment as well as mitigate future damage.” 

Wool’s work has attracted lots of interest from industry and government, and his own company, Cara Plastics, is slated to begin production of bio-based resins for the VARTM, RTM, BMC, and SMC processes this year through a partnership with DynaChem of Georgetown, Illinois.  Many of the processes and products he has developed are protected by patents held by the University.

Despite the very practical applications of much of his recent work, Wool has not forgotten his roots as a chemical engineer with an interest in basic theory.  Last year, he published a seminal paper documenting a new approach to understanding the molecular aspects of adhesion at polymer-polymer interfaces.  He now has a new theory in the works, which he refers to as the “Twinkling Fractal Theory of the Glass Transition Temperature.”

This new theory provides a unique and novel interpretation of glassy materials, a category that encompasses most composite materials.  The theory has implications for a broad array of properties and applications in bulk composites as well as nano-thin materials, ranging from fatigue and fracture to ballistic impact and physical aging.

OTHER NEWS

CCM Researchers Contribute Expertise to Earthrace
By Diane Kukich

Jason Etherington, Pit Schulze, and Jordan Wagner, all researchers affiliated with CCM, recently contributed to a project that may make history.   The three volunteered their time and contributed their composites CCM Rwe, a bid to break the world record for circumnavigating the globe in a powerboat.  Using only renewable fuels, the carbon-Kevlar composite boat is expected to complete the 24,000-mile trip in 65 days.  The current record of 75 days was set by British boat Cable & Wireless in 1998. Etherington and Schulze are Research Associates at the Center.  Wagner, a researcher under contract with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, has offices at both CCM and the Army Research Lab at Aberdeen Proving Ground in nearby Maryland. Schulze learned about the project through the Earthrace web site, and he was immediately intrigued. “I saw this picture of a boat that looked like a space ship in a science fiction movie,” he says.  “I knew I wanted to at least see it.”

Using only renewable fuels, the carbon-Kevlar composite boat is expected to complete the 24,000-mile trip in 65 days.

Schulze and Wagner got a chance not only to see the boat but also to meet the crew and take a cruise when it stopped in Baltimore in November as part of a 60-city world tour.  The three were then invited to South Carolina in late January, when the boat was docked in Hilton Head for repairs and a pre-race check. 

That’s when their composites experience came into play.  “The boat is made entirely of composites, and it had started to blister and delaminate in a number of places,” Etherington says, “so we volunteered to work on the repairs.”  The three composites engineers also built a set of integrated steps to enable easier access to the elevated cockpit.

While the $3-million craft is made from advanced materials and features a high-tech wave-piercing hull design, the conditions under which the volunteers worked were hardly sophisticated.   With the facilities of CCM’s Composites Manufacturing Science Lab more than 600 miles away, they were forced to improvise.

“It was a lot different working there in the field,” says Etherington. “We had just one shot to get it right.  With research, you have a lot of time to plan and a lot of resources.  Down there, we had our hands and whatever was available, and we had to finish the job over a weekend.”

Although they used their personal vacation time to make the trip and they donated their time, the three agree that the effort was more than worth it.  “The whole thing has been a once in a lifetime chance, to be able to contribute to such an amazing craft and to know we made a difference,” says Wagner.  “Just the thought that something we made with our own hands is going to circumnavigate the globe is indescribable.” For Schulze, the reward came from a mix of helping others while also doing something for himself.  “I had dreamed of working with such a team and doing that type of custom boat-building work,” he says.  “Then, a year later, I actually found myself doing it.  It was amazing.”

The boat will launch from Barbados on March 6 and follow a course as close to the equator as possible.  The return to Barbados is targeted for April 28.  The only U.S. city on the course is San Diego.

While Etherington, Schulze, and Wagner will not get a chance to see the boat en route around the world, they do plan to meet up again with the crew on the post-race tour, probably in New York.

While the trip itself is expected to take less than 10 weeks, the project has spanned three years, involving thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars.  Just as important as the two-month race was the 18-month pre-race tour, carried out to promote fuels like biodiesel and raise awareness about sustainable use of resources.

As the project web site states, “The Earthrace will be the highest-profile powerboat in the world, as well as one of the greenest. It is a showcase of environmentally friendly technologies such as low-emissions engines, non-toxic anti-foul and efficient hull design. It is also one of the coolest-looking boats ever imagined.”

Etherington, Schulze, and Wagner almost missed out on the opportunity to be involved with Earthrace.  “It was quite a journey following that boat up and down the East Coast,” Wagner recalls. 

“We first tried to see it in Philadelphia, but we got off I-95 just in time to see the boat leaving. So we drove down to the Indian River Inlet in Delaware, where they were supposed to be next, and we found the boat at night in the rain.  But we didn’t get to meet the crew until we drove all the way down to Baltimore at its next stop.  After we had explained our situation and told them that we worked at CCM, they invited us to South Carolina to held them out.” But their persistence obviously paid off.  They finally got to not only see “one of the coolest-looking boats ever imagined” but also help prepare it for its attempt at a record-breaking voyage around the world.

CONSORTIUM

CCM would like to welcome Air Products and Chemicals, Allentown, PA, to our Industry-university consortium. We would also like to thank BAE Systems, Santa Clara, CA for the recent renweal of their membership.

To learn more about our Consortium, please visit http://www.ccm.udel.edu/Consortium/members.html .

PUBLICATIONS

Journals

Abu Obaid, A., A. Gocke, S. Yarlagadda, and S. Advani," Enhancement of Adhesion Between Copper and Vinyl Ester in Glass Fiber-Vinyl Ester Composites", Composites Interfaces, 14, 2, pp. 99-116, 2007.

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