Steve Lustig, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering (COE)
Lab/Research Center Affiliation: Lustig Lab
Description of Subject Interest and Expertise: Our work seeks to design and manipulate molecular/materials chemistry and structure for new property discovery, new functionality and technology development by combining theory, high performance computing and experimental methods. Our theoretical methods frequently involve quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics, polymer physics, materials and biomolecular engineering. Our experimental methods frequently involve chemical synthesis, processing and characterizations: such as: microlithography, electrospinning, atomic force microscopy, spectroscopy, rheology and electroanalysis. We develop and implement powerful, multi-disciplinary tools to solve relevant problems with industry and national laboratories. Currently we are world leaders in synthesizing novel 2D polymers graphimine and graphamid that have unparalleled performance in electronics and armor applications.
Description of Current Project/Scholarly Endeavor: There are two open projects in the Lustig Lab.
- There are two open projects in the Lustig Lab. The 2D Polymer program is a collaboration with the US Army Research Laboratory to design and develop novel materials for high performance structural and protective armor applications. The Lustig Lab has discovered new syntheses of benzene monomers with polymerizable functional groups on each of the six carbons. This enables the synthesis of novel two dimensional polymers with hexavalent nodes, such as graphimine and graphamid. While the chemical syntheses of these monomers are now well-established, the project is now focused on the polymerization process to produce well-ordered, high molecular weight 2D polymers. We are particularly interested in mechanochemical polymerizations to induce 2D covalency and layer-on-layer intermolecular stacking. Students will join the existing research efforts in the Lustig Lab to explore a wide range of mechanochemical polymerization conditions and run detailed characterizations, including differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray scattering, atomic force microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy.
- The Kevlar(R) program is a collaboration with DuPont to understand and improve Kevlar(R) and Kevlar(R) EXO for high performance structural and protective armor applications. The project involves the prediction of intermolecular structure development in manufacturing and the use of artificial intelligence/machine learning to predict and design new hybrid armor technologies based on optimizing co-application of PPTA and PPTA-DAPBI polymers.
Email: s.lustig@northeastern.edu