Photo: Harald Neumann
The Convergence Center for Living Multifunctional Material Systems (LiMC²), in partnership with the University of Freiburg’s Cluster of Excellence for Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS), has announced the recipients of the inaugural Living Multifunctional Materials Collaborative Research Seed Grant Program. Three joint faculty teams from Penn State and University of Freiburg were selected for the program. The goal of the seed grant program is to advance the discovery of sustainable materials that are biological or inspired by biological principles.
“The teams selected advance the three areas of focus of LiMC², namely living materials for sensing, adaptive architecture and advanced manufacturing,” says Zoubeida Ounaies, professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State University and director of LiMC². “I look forward to seeing these teams of researchers leverage the unique strengths of our two institutions and, in the process, precipitate significant discoveries in the area of sustainable living materials.”
“The Seed Grant program aims to maximize the center’s potential for innovation and set the scene for future endeavors,” said Professor Jürgen Rühe, speaker of the cluster of excellence livMatS. “We are looking forward to our seed to take root and develop into long-term collaborative and multi-disciplinary projects.”
The selected projects are:
- “Scalable Nanomanufacturing Technique for Bioinspired Nonpigmented Colored Fabrics” by Akhlesh Lakhtakia (Penn State Unievrsity) and Günter Reiter (University of Freiburg)
- “Adaptive Low-CO2 Steel-Reinforced Cementitious Materials for Sustainable, Resilient, and Next-Generation Architectural Structures” by Juan Pablo Gevaudan Burgos (Penn State University) and Michael Moseler (University of Freiburg)
- “Additive Manufacturing of Tissue-Mimetic Dynamically-Responsive Multi-Materials” by Amir Sheikhi (Penn State University), Seong Kim (Penn State University), and Bastian Rapp (University of Freiburg)
Website of LiMC²