Natural rubber is used in a wide range of products used throughout the globe. Lab-produced rubber works for many applications but is insufficient for vital items like airplane tires and specialty medical products.
Natural rubber also is a precious resource; 90% of the plants that serve as its source for are grown in a tiny area of Southeast Asia.
A $26 million grant from the National Science Foundation will fund an Engineering Research Center aimed at producing natural rubber in the United States, an industry that has the potential to enhance access to this precious natural resource and to produce millions of jobs.
UC Merced chemical and materials engineering Professor Kara McCloskey is a co-principal investigator for the newly awarded ERC, titled Transformation of American Rubber through Domestic Innovation for Supply Security, or TARDISS. The center is led by Ohio State University; in addition to UC Merced, partners include Caltech, North Carolina State University and Texas Tech University.
"The School of Engineering at UC Merced is pleased to accept this award and looks forward to participating in this impactful interdisciplinary research that aligns with UC Merced's mission to incorporate sustainable best practices in all areas of technology," Dean Rakesh Goel said.
According to its abstract, TARDISS will integrate engineering, biology, biotechnology, agriculture and other disciplines to produce new natural rubber materials at scale. McCloskey said she is "particularly excited to explore the use of natural rubber materials to generate new biocompatible medical products."
Researchers across the participating institutions will work with students, farmers, processors and rubber manufacturers to enable natural rubber production in parts of the United States. They envision a circular biomanufacturing economy that respects natural systems, including pollinator services by the new domestic crops, water recycling and re-use, CO 2 capture, and an estimated 2 million domestic jobs.
In addition to McCloskey, the TARDISS team at UC Merced includes professors Colleen Naughton, Jay Sexton, Joshua Viers, Erin Hestir and Josué MedellÍn-Azuara. Together, they aim to understand how plants naturally produce rubber, develop new crop variants, disseminate "smart" crop production practices, quantify life cycle environmental and techno-economic market impacts, and extract and characterize new rubber and latex materials, along with novel processes-for-products.
"Engineering workforce development feeds directly into training the next generation of workers in these broad areas and "will synergize with the campus's new chemical engineering B.S. degree program with hands-on experimentation in rubber and latex extraction from new plant materials" McCloskey said.
The ERC feature an inclusion effort involving underrepresented minorities, and will include training for neurodiverse youth. The outcomes will be a sustainable domestic natural rubber industry and a new, young workforce for engineering and agriculture trained through a new American Rubber Academy.
The lab is one of four recently funded by NSF's Engineering Research Center program for a total of $104 million over five years, and the potential for up to $208 million over 10 years. The others ERCs will develop technologies to tackle the carbon challenge, expand physical capabilities and make heating and cooling more sustainable. Since its founding in 1985, the NSF has funded 83 such centers, which receive support for up to 10 years.
"The centers build partnerships with educational institutions, government agencies and industry stakeholders to support innovation and inclusion in established and emerging engineering research," the NSF said.
"NSF Engineering Research Centers are powerhouses of discovery and innovation, bringing America's great engineering minds to bear on our toughest challenges," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "By collaborating with industry and training the workforce of the future, ERCs create an innovation ecosystem that can accelerate engineering innovations, producing tremendous economic and societal benefits for the nation."
"This achievement will propel UCM research in new and exciting ways," said Viers, Associate Vice Chancellor for Interdisciplinary Research and Strategic Initiatives in the Office of Research at UC Merced.
