New Network to Advance International Efforts for Sustainable Materials

Environmental engineers from Duke University are leading a new international effort to evolve the tools and methods available for assessing the potential environmental impact of new materials.

Funded by a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s AccelNET program, the new initiative, which begins January 1, 2022, is called the International Network for Researching, Advancing, and Assessing Materials for Environmental Sustainability—or INFRAMES for short.

“INFRAMES represents a community of people who have been working on environmental nanotechnology for more than a decade,” said Mark Wiesner, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, architect of INFRAMES and founding director of Duke’s Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT). “That experience gave us insights into the kinds of tools and procedures needed to look at the sustainability of new materials. This grant will allow us to port that experience into a broad consideration of materials being pursued for emerging applications.”

Generally, those emerging applications include particle-based delivery systems for nutrients and pesticides in agricultural applications; materials used in transportation; advanced materials for resource recovery and water treatment; engineered and incidental bio-particles; and evaluating the consequences of micro/nano plastics.

“INFRAMES represents a community of people who have been working on environmental nanotechnology for more than a decade,” said Mark Wiesner, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, architect of INFRAMES and founding director of Duke’s Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT). “That experience gave us insights into the kinds of tools and procedures needed to look at the sustainability of new materials. This grant will allow us to port that experience into a broad consideration of materials being pursued for emerging applications.”

Generally, those emerging applications include particle-based delivery systems for nutrients and pesticides in agricultural applications; materials used in transportation; advanced materials for resource recovery and water treatment; engineered and incidental bio-particles; and evaluating the consequences of micro/nano plastics.

“INFRAMES represents a community of people who have been working on environmental nanotechnology for more than a decade. That experience gave us insights into the kinds of tools and procedures needed to look at the sustainability of new materials. This grant will allow us to port that experience into a broad consideration of materials being pursued for emerging applications.” 

Mark Wiesner, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, architect of INFRAMES and founding director of CEINT. 

Beginning in 2008, CEINT brought together experts from more than a dozen national and international institutions to address questions about the transport and toxicity of nanoparticles. The center has played a central role in the international community evaluating the environment, health and safety of this new class of materials, opening doors to designing more efficient and effective nanomaterials.

Besides the researchers and institutions associated with CEINT, INFRAMES will draw expertise from a long list of similarly focused networks, including 12 institutions connected to the US-based Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology; The North Carolina A&T-UNCG Joint Schools of Nanoscience; elements of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure; eight ongoing European Union networks (SAbyNa , Gracious, NanoCommons, RiskGONE, NanoInformaTIX, SERENADE, ACENano and Nanosaftely Cluster) representing over 100 participating European Union partners; the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana; and researchers at six synchrotron X-ray facilities in four countries.

“Each group has its own history and expertise, like characterizing materials with high-energy beam lines, seeing how materials move through complex mesocosms or developing computational modeling infrastructure,” said Wiesner. “But we all share a history of working together. That’s the key to making this work.”