The Illinois Polymer Maker Lab, Beckman’s newest core facility, will open soon in the institute’s basement. The lab will be the first-of-its-kind facility for the automated formulation and testing of polymer-based materials and will soon be open to researchers across campus and across the nation.

The lab will help researchers accelerate the development of materials and products related to paints and coatings, adhesives, personal care items, composites, and materials for 3D printing. It could also help researchers design resins for energy-efficient manufacturing and products in the food science industry. It’s funded by a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation.

"The core capabilities will be pretty unique,” said Dan Krogstad, the lab’s manager and a research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “The IPML facility at Beckman provides researchers with an incredible opportunity to accelerate the development of polymer-based formulations through the creation of rich, digital datasets using automated equipment and workflows.”

The lab joins four other Beckman core research facilities: the Biomedical Imaging Center, Microscopy Suite, Molecular Imaging Lab and Visualization Lab.

“The Illinois Polymer Maker Lab is another example of how Beckman provides cutting-edge facilities that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Beckman Director Steve Maren. “This facility will fuel materials discovery for our researchers and especially allow them to push the boundaries of knowledge through AI.”

The Anton Paar high-throughput rheometer, an HTR 7000, was the first instrument to be installed in IPML earlier this spring. It’s a robotic instrument capable of dispensing polymers and measuring their flow behavior automatically.

Installation time lapse and fast facts about the Anton Paar HTR 7000 rheometer.Specifically, the HTR is designed to test the rheological properties of polymer solutions, pastes and gels, Krogstad said. In other words, it will look at how the materials flow when exposed to force or pressure. It’s important information for many real-world situations.

For example, the rheological properties tell us whether a paint will drip after being applied to a surface, how easy it is to squeeze toothpaste out of a tube or how well the materials will flow through pipes in a factory.

However, while the rheological properties are important in the development of new materials, collecting related data can require a lot of time. High-throughput systems, like IMPL’s Anton Paar HTR 7000, help overcome this limitation.

Sam Tawfick, a co-leader of the Autonomous Materials Systems group, said his Beckman research colleagues are researching how to better manufacture advanced materials through 3D printing or resins for polymers reinforced with carbon fibers

“The flow behavior of polymers is critical to assess their manufacturability,” said Tawfick, the Anderson Family Scholar and professor of mechanical science and engineering, adding that the IPML rheometer’s usefulness is in how it dispenses polymers and automatically measures their flow.

“This changes the students’ workflow in the lab by minimizing sample preparation steps and enabling the equipment to run and take measurements 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the students, this means higher productivity and the ability to focus on interpretation of the results.”

Beyond reducing the time required, automating rheological measurements promotes machine learning by making procedures more uniform, creating organized digital datasets and increasing the amount of data that can be collected.

Tawfick believes access to the lab will have incredible implications for both expanding knowledge and offering new materials to the public.

“I personally think students will achieve more during the same timeline of a Ph.D. or postdoctoral training, connecting more dots around their discovery and tightening both the scientific understanding and the reliability of their discoveries,” he said.

In the past, it’s taken up to 20 years for a new polymer, like a high temperature resistant silicone or high strength composite, to be ready for commercial use. Material readiness is ranked on a scale (called the Technology Readiness Level, or TRL) between 0 and 9, the latter which describes a material that’s commercially established.

“It takes about 10 years to move the concept of a material from TRL 0 to TRL 3 in a lab,” Tawfick said. “IPML is targeting this stage, with the aim of shortening it from a decade to potentially weeks.”

And because the lab will be a Beckman core facility, knowledge can transfer among users thanks to the help of expert staff members and the creation of institutional knowledge, Tawfick said.

“Groups from campus and external users from the private sector will benefit from and contribute to this institutional knowledge,” he said. “This will be accomplished by gradually optimizing the workflows and the AI models used in the facility.”