FPL scientist heads to Purdue to promote partnerships by Rebecca Wallace, Public Affairs Specialist The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) and Purdue University have joined forces to promote and establish cooperation in forest products utilization education, research, and development. Specifically, the partnership will have an emphasis on nanotechnology, forest biomass-to-energy, and forest biorefinery.
A five-year Memorandum of Understanding was signed in December 2006. Since then, FPL Materials Research Engineer Robert Moon has relocated to Purdue to establish joint nanotechnology research programs between FPL scientists and Purdue faculty. Nanotechnology in forest products is the area currently being most actively pursued. Purdue is home to the Birck Nanotechnology Center, a nanoscale science and engineering research center; but the university has yet to delve into forest products in this arena. "Currently, Purdue does not have any programs in nanotechnology that focus on forest products," said Moon. "This fact presents a great opportunity to start research programs with a clean slate."
Moon is working to identify areas of research at Purdue that might be applicable to wood science research or forest products development and then tie them in with the active research areas at FPL. This will lead to the development of a series of research programs that will be strongly influenced by the needs of the forest products industry. "The initial goal of my work is to build a community at Purdue interested and active in nanoscale science and engineering of forest-based materials," said Moon. And in that respect, he has already been successful. Moon's research on cellulose nanocrystals (nanoparticles derived from trees) involves Purdue faculty from several different departments (i.e., physics, mechanical engineering, materials engineering, and agronomy), none of which has previously considered forest-based materials. Building on that interest, FPL scientists are now participating with Purdue in joint research that Moon initiated, and he is pleased with the cooperation thus far. "I have been impressed by the open-mindedness of both FPL scientists and Purdue faculty, and by their willingness to work on these research projects," Moon stated. "I am encouraged by the level of support I'm seeing from both sides of this partnership, and think it bodes well for the future of the program." The long-term goal of this initiative is the establishment of a Forest Products Nanotechnology Center located at Purdue University. Over the next few years, Moon and many others will work to put in place the mechanisms needed to initiate the center. Until then, he will continue to focus on building communities at Purdue and FPL to bring nanotechnology to the forefront of forest products research.
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