The Illinois Polymer Maker Lab, Beckman’s newest core facilities, is open.

Its unique, automated tools for making polymers and measuring their properties are fully operational. The lab is ready for researchers from across campus and the rest of the nation. Those interested in using its equipment should contact its staff.

The lab opened in mid-August and now features three more custom-made automated tools. They include a Labman Formulation System, a Labman Frontal Polymerization System and a TA Instruments Differential Scanning Calorimeter. They join an Anton Paar Automated High Throughput Rheometer 7000, which was installed in the summer.

The lab is accelerating 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.

A Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation funded the lab.

Its main output: data.

“Students can create a year’s worth of data in a week” in the facility, said Dan Krogstad, the lab’s manager and a research professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Everything is tracked and digitized, which means researchers can feed the data into artificial intelligence models to supercharge their work.

And because the measurements are so precise, the lab makes it easier for researchers to reproduce, “which will make for better science,” Krogstad said.

Cristina Álavarez-Mingote, Beckman's associate director for research, said the lab is a complement to Beckman's strong history of molecular innovation.

“This new facility builds on a strong foundation of materials research at the Beckman Institute," she said. "It positions the institute to critically accelerate the development of new polymer materials to solve societal challenges in energy, sustainability, and advanced manufacturing.”

“This new facility builds on a strong foundation of materials research at the Beckman Institute. It positions the institute to critically accelerate the development of new polymer materials to solve societal challenges in energy, sustainability, and advanced manufacturing.”

Formulation system

First stop for any material being handled in the lab is the formulation system. It’s equipped to mix and measure powders, thin liquids like water, thick liquids like shampoo or honey, large powders like fillers and small powders like catalysts.

“Anything that can be extruded from a syringe can be handled in this facility,” Krogstad said.

It can create 400 to 500 samples in a week, all with slightly different properties. And because it’s fully digitized and automated, the researchers can set it and let it work.

The system accurately weighs each ingredient into a cup, which is moved to a mixing station. After it’s mixed, it can return to the weigh station as many times as the researcher needs.

Once the material is mixed, the formulation system transfers the material from the cup into a test-tube-like syringe, which can be used at any other station within the maker lab.

Frontal polymerization system

If you’ve ever visited the Beckman Institute Open House, you might be familiar with frontal polymerization. In this process, researchers can cure a material by exposing one end to heat. In those demonstrations, the material cures while a student holds a test tube under a fume hood.

The unique Labman Frontal Polymerization System does the same thing, only for 54 samples at a time. An infrared camera captures their reaction and measures how hot they get and how fast they cure, what researchers call their “thermal profile.”

TA Instruments Differential Scanning Calorimeter

This instrument is all about temperature – samples can be exposed to cold as low as -80 degrees Celsius and as hot as 400 degrees Celsius. All the while, it’s measuring what happens to the samples. Are they melting? Crystalizing?

The instrument has an autoloader, which will also free up researchers’ time.

“We are accelerating research overnight,” Krogstad said.

Editor’s note: For more information about the Illinois Polymer Maker Lab, please visit its website.