Life in Color: From Photochromic Crocs to the Future of Electronics

Dr. Natalia Shustova’s lab at the University of South Carolina works with metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, molecules of metal ions and organic links. MOFs can be engineered with specific properties for a wide variety of applications – from building construction, clothing, and smartphone materials to pharmaceuticals and energy generation.

Part of Dr. Shustova's work centers on nuclear waste management and she and her colleagues are exploring ways MOFs could be used in detecting and storing radioactive materials. 

But wait, there's more!  And you'll hear all about it in this podcast moderated by veteran award-winning broadcast journalists George Lewis and Judy Muller.

Transcript

Science Straight Up, Season 6, Episode 2

“Life in Color—From Photochromic Crocs to the Future of Electronics”

Speaker: Dr. Natalia Shustova, University of South Carolina

Moderators: Judy Muller and George Lewis

(THEME)

JUDY: From Telluride Science, it’s SCIENCE STRAIGHT UP.

GEORGE: And this time around, “Life in Color” courtesy of Dr Natalia Shustova, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. She gave one of the Town Talks presented by Telluride Science.

NATALIA: Life in color… That's why I'm not in a suit, which I typically do even in Telluride.

JUDY: No, she came out onto the stage of the Telluride Mountain Village Conference Center in an orange hoodie, with yellow splotches. A sort-of brief fashion show followed.

NATALIA: I have only one task here, which is to entertain.

GEORGE: And entertain she did, pulling out one of those heat packs that people use for muscle aches and applying it to the fabric of her jacket.

JUDY: Wherever she touched the jacket, the fabric reacted to the heat and more yellow splotches appeared. She noted that they’d go away if she stepped outside in the cold.

NATALIA: If I'm going outside, it's going to be orange. But if I'm going to see you're going to see me tomorrow in this jacket is going to be yellow.

JUDY: She had a serious point to make after modeling the jacket.

NATALIA I want to promote women in science, even despite the fact it's not popular anymore this country.

JUDY: Dr. Shustova, born in Russia, began her studies at Moscow State University where she got a doctorate in physical chemistry, then came to this county where she received another doctorate in inorganic chemistry from Colorado State University. She’s won numerous awards for her work, including recognition for her role in the women-in-science program at the University of South Carolina. More on that a bit later.

GEORGE: Dr. Shustova’s jacket was made from heat-sensitive photochromic material. It’s kind of like the transitions lenses in my eyeglasses that turn from clear to dark when I leave the house and walk outside in the sun. Photochromic material can be engineered to react to a wide variety of things such as heat or light or electrical impulses or even radiation. Some examples of how it could be used: A prototype BMW auto that starts out as black and winds up as red when you pull it out of the garage. And Crocs chameleons—kids’ shoes that change color when the children play outside.

NATALIA: I think, like the majority of us who is actually using all of these technologies, we took it, we borrow the whole concept, actually, from nature, right? So you would ask me, like, what's nature's doing? Right? Nature is doing a lot of interesting stuff.

JUDY: And a lot of her work involves interesting stuff. Specifically, it involves metal organic frameworks or MOF’s. and this discussion will be pretty wide ranging because MOF’s can do a lot of things. 

GEORGE We thought we ought to explain what M-O-F’s, MOF’s are: they’re kind of microscopic scaffolds...organic structures…they’re porous, they’ve got metal nodes linked by organic struts.

JUDY If you Google them, some of them look like geodesic domes made out of Tinker Toys.

GEORGE They can be used to create drugs, can't they? that activate on demand, theoretically only affecting certain targeted areas of the body. I'm thinking of chemotherapy and cancer treatment where people get really sick from the poisonous side effects, but if you could target the drug at the cancer and just turn it on for the tumor area, that would be cool. 

NATALIA: It's actually like for me, it's difficult to talk about the subject, especially in front of my colleagues who are doing that I'm just talking right? So forgive me if I say something wrong. So yes, you can actually how to say activate drug delivery. So, okay, metal, organic frameworks or MOF’s, what they known for. It's actually big, porous materials like smart sponges, right? If you have a smart sponge, then you fill it with what you want, put it in a pill, eat it, and then activate it where you need it. That would be ideal.  

JUDY: Dr. Shustova is one of about eleven hundred scientists attending Telluride Science workshops this year. There’s a lot of talk here about how some of those Metal Organic Frameworks have color-changing properties.  How about windows to cover tall buildings that can darken in the daytime but others that can act as solar panels to generate electricity.

NATALIA: You can actually create the skyscraper, which you coat the whole thing. And actually you can collect energy. So you actually not only incorporate it into the airports, luxury hotels, offices, right? You actually create energy, which you can actually power your devices. 

JUDY: I You've predicted, or else I read it somewhere. I'm not sure which that by 2050 all buildings will be constructed with photovoltaic windows, and how much of that is happening now in terms of construction, and what does that mean for the future of solar panels.

NATALIA: So it was actually like this technology. Everybody use it. It's not like something what I showed today. It's not new concept, and it's new, not new dream, right? So we have so many, so much space or surface right of this building, if we can, if we cover of this building with the transparent let's say solar cells, right? That's what, how we can collect a lot of energy and still have transparency, right?  So all of this actually changes, but this technology, I was involved in couple projects where they cover certain buildings, not in this country, with coatings, right, which is actually transparent, coatings, which can actually absorb light and convert it to electrical current, which you use, like for capacitors, for charges or so. 

JUDY: Is Asia ahead of us? Then? Is it when you say other countries,

NATALIA: I can't say it in front of the audience, you know, like I know some of the international people, so I wish that we progress fast in next couple years, despite all of this happening.

GEORGE: How worried are your about cutbacks in funding?

NATALIA: Huh? (laughter from audience)

GEORGE: How worried are you about cutbacks in funding?

NATALIA: Ugh!  So if you want to have like, I'm optimist in general, otherwise I will be not scientist, you know, soas of so all of the, all of the things which I showed today, like a sort of, like technologies which I'm working on, I was super optimistic and show to everyone I'm invited in a lot of countries, a lot of places. And two months ago, it took a like one of the large grants was took, taken away, because it's no longer priority for this country. That's what the definition, how I got it. So I hope the whole priority country changed back so and we can advance technological sector much as as we did before. And  I know I'm not alone. It's like a lot of people here and there and the major schools here, I probably a lot of people heard here who are much more advanced than me and much more how to say advance in their careers, who has actually that's because it's not only technology. We are doing workforce development. We train students who's going to be our future, even if we want it or not, right? 

GEORGE: How worried are you about a brain drain, about all this talent going somewhere else?

(JUDY) Worried. 

NATALIA: Let's put it this way. I came to the two weeks ago. I was in Europe, and Europe right now opens so many attractive programs to attract professors from U.S. to Europe. 

JUDY: So they see an opportunity. 

NATALIA: Yeah.

GEORGE: Judy and I wanted to ask her about all the futuristic applications for color-changing materials.  And the possible downsides. What bank robber wouldn’t love a car and a wardrobe that changes color?

JUDY: For instance, you're in a getaway car. Yeah, I've watched too many detective shows so and and changing outfits go from color to color, and you know, your whole being could be used in nefarious ways.

NATALIA: You know, I can tell this. I love this type of questions because my Russian accent and all of this Russian mafia business like, I like to see Americans movie who try to replicate Russian accents. It's so funny. So I have it so I can say, yeah. I mean, it's a lot of other opportunities you can see, I just like the idea that you can actually how to say, change the property of your change the color, which is means the property of your materials, of your car, of your shoes, of your jackets, after you buy it. And you can actually design it or program it, if you wish. Right? So I like the black car in during the night, and I like red car in the morning, and I can have it. Do you see what I'm saying? So I don't need to have a two I can have like, it's cheap.

JUDY: And if the APB is out on a red car with a guy in a blue jacket, I'm just imagining some of the nefarious ways we could use it.  Buildings that are using these windows, and you said you could charge everything in your house, potentially. 

NATALIA: Potentially, if you know how to harvest all sun around you, yes. 

JUDY: So how would that change our daily lives? Just living in a house with these windows.

NATALIA: You don't need to pay a lot of your electricity bills, right, right? So, but on the how to say, on a daily basis, we already go into electrical cars, right? So, which you can charge from your house from solar panels, it's going to only expand. It's not goes back, right? So, and we are going to use all alternative energy sources, which is one of them, it's the biggest and achievable and green. It's called Sun, right? We just need all of us. I want to have one analogy. Nature already solved everything by way, right? You know what actually absorb and efficiently transform light into whatever they need? It's leaves. It's plants, right? Even cacti, small needle, cacti…

JUDY: Cacti… 

NATALIA: Small needle. This is your leaf, right? So it's absorb everything, what it wants, and confirm and convert it into the food. So if we can do even 50% of what they're doing, we already like winning the game, right? So this is our electricity. This is our supplies for the next generations of of coming, right?

GEORGE: (NEW NARR)  (ad lib around this) In one of our podcasts last year, Dr. Jenny Yang, of the University of California, Irvine talked about this…using a process like photosynthesis to create fuel and do all sorts of other handy things. If you’re fascinated by this topic, check it out. 

JUDY: So think of ourselves as plants. 

NATALIA: Yeah, and the plants also can how to say, restore or heal them themselves, right? So it's not like you drop the leaf and the tree dead, right? So it's actually. Many leaves and leaves still, if you torn apart, it still can do its job, right? So it's what I'm where I'm going. So called self healing materials, right? So when you break it, they can repair themselves. 

JUDY: Whoa. 

NATALIA: So that would be nice, right? So that's also a part of the agenda, or part of a lot of my work and colleagues, my colleagues work focus.

JUDY: The subject shifted to the factors that are advancing or holding back the development of automotive technology. Future cars might employ metal-organic frameworks in batteries or hydrogen storage. 

NATALIA: I was flying with one of the engineers from BMW. That's why I say when I saw him, I'm just like, Okay, we spent five hours talking. And he said, like, Okay, we have technology to convert to electrical BMW or to hydrogen containing, like, cars driven on hydrogen, right? So we have it whenever push we will change, but we still have oil, right? So that's what we're driving. So it's a lot of factors inside of that, right? So it's not like I'm designed the material, which I like, but it's a lot of people who is much smarter, more more influential, should move it to the next step.

GEORGE: You mentioned BMW, I saw a clip from the Consumer Electronics Show from a couple of years ago where they were changing the color of the car instantaneously using a smartphone app and obviously..I'm wearing photochromic lenses, and the speed you mentioned, at which it changes color, that's a big pain in the butt for me. When, when I come in from the bright sunlight into the house, I can barely see anything for a while. When do I get the photochromic glasses that I can change color within a smartphone app?

NATALIA:  If you're willing to buy, if you're willing to pay for your glasses, the same price as the people buy for pay for BMW, right? (laughter) So, by way, for they didn't pay me to promote BMW. I don't have BMW, and probably it's going to be next life for me. So, yeah, it's, it's also what you really need to realize that your lenses, right, react on sunlight, but probably this car react to, like, how they change the colors or customize. It's a current, right? 

GEORGE: Electrical current?

NATALIA: Yeah, it's much faster.

JUDY: Some people, like myself, are always neglecting to charge their smartphones. Natalia raised the interesting possibility of a jacket that you could wear that could generate electricity from sunlight and charge the phone when it’s placed in the jacket pocket.

NATALIA: You have wireless charging, right? You just put iPhone on some flat thing, yes, actually has a charger built in. So that's your jacket. You have a capacitor or something. Some you have a device which is put in the pocket, it's a wireless connection, and it charge your iPhone.

JUDY: We warned you in the beginning that this discussion might go all over the place, from cars, to buildings, to stuff that you could wear. But Dr. Shustova sees a wide variety of uses for metal organic frameworks and that’s why it’s wide-ranging. 

GEORGE: And while she and her colleagues are doing the basic science stuff, they leave it to others to develop the products that will emerge from all this technology. 

JUDY: Some of the people she’s working with are developing ways you could detect radiation and store nuclear waste more efficiently. They’ve been working with the Savannah River National Laboratory. She talks about MOF’s as sponges. You take those sponges and soak up nuclear waste and then cast it into giant cylinders that can hold it safely. 

NATALIA: Do not be afraid of nuclear technology. What you need to be afraid is processing of nuclear weapons from past. That's what your net, your big processing facility in this country actually doing a processing nuclear weapons from the past. So what is actually happening? That's what you need to reprocess all of this nuclear waste that's acquired from Cold Wars, right? So I can I know both sides, (laughter) so I can speak for both.

JUDY: Earlier, Dr. Shustova made an intriguing remark about how this country doesn’t really care about the role of women in science any more and I asked her to explain about that a bit more.

NATALIA: Okay as a female, and I would like to see much more people, and especially females, in STEM disciplines. We need them, because if sometimes it's actually very depressing, then you go to the conference or scientific meeting, and it's only two of you among 20 or 30 or like I was in a conference when, among 200 people in the audience, I was only one who delivering the talk. And I would like it to be changed, but it's not like my efforts. It's one small drop in a big ocean, right? So it should be pushing from different points of view, from schools, from governments, from educations, and that people need to develop a lot of programs, for instance, childcare, right? So my tenure, which is called like professor, you need to get tenure in five years. It's overlap with the kids. Yeah, so I have a daughter, right? And then I remember, then I fly. I need to fly. I need to get tenure. And I what, I really, what only my thought is just like how my baby will be without me for six months. It's tough. I'm not going to lie, it was not easy, and I don't want my daughter or my students or anyone experience the same. I want society to advance in this direction. So that's I really want to see. So…  (applause)

JUDY:  Yeah, I relate. Women in newsrooms, single mom, only woman in a newsroom. It's the same battle. I Well, I'm glad I asked the question. It's really important. Well, we'd like to open this to the audience. 

GEORGE: When we did open it for questions, there was a discussion of those new high-tech windows for skyscrapers that can generate electricity. And one roadblock they’ve encountered..cracks.

NATALIA: It's like when you think about skyscrapers, and I was in a couple projects in the big teams, they talk about safety first, because windows, in addition to all what fine stuff I talking about, should be safe so should not have cracks. (46:31) The question is, When are you going to do that? I can predict that. I know that certain countries already have some buildings with this Windows.

GEORGE: Is there a Is there a problem with these color changing windows? If you've darkened them during the day, don't they absorb a lot of heat? And how do you deal with that?

NATALIA: Yes, you need to think about heat dissipation so, and that's part of the reason there are technology of doing that, right? So you can do, yeah, that's why I'm saying, like, I'm not talking about conceptual things. So there's challenges the same as your lenses, and I hope much brighter people will solve it.

JUDY: Yes, oh, there's one over here, right?

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: Could you possibly. Possibly make a material that changes color in response to gamma radiation to detect illicit radioactive material, say, in a busy bus station or football stadium? It's exactly what we are doing right now. And in short answer on your questions, yes, we can, and it's actually very sensitive to that. 

JUDY: And could you give a longer answer to his question, so I understand what the question was. 

GEORGE: So you hit this material with gamma radiation, and what does it do? 

NATALIA: So basically, you the idea was any type of radiation, let's say alpha particles, gamma radiations, X ray right, which you interact with as on a daily basis, or, for instance, I relate to that only because I am working with the nuclear weapons decommissioning, right? So a lot of what I'm working with, it's very highly radioactive, right? So it's bad for you, but it's not visible. So for instance, is radioactivity leaking to the water? You can't just see it. It's not like, Hey, I am here. Like, don't drink it, right? So you need to have a sensor for that, right? So, and in particular, like, you can have X ray gamma, or any type of this, you can sense it, right? So, in water, outside, whatever you want, right? So, and that's type of sensing technology, right? It's very important, especially we have a lot of reprocessing facilities in this country, right? So one of this, it's called Hanford. 

JUDY: Hanford, a plant in Washington State that made material for nuclear bombs, has been the site of the largest environmental cleanup in history, because of leakage in nuclear waste tanks. The Department of Energy estimates that the cost to finish cleaning up the Hanford Site could reach 589 billion dollars. Just that one site.

NATALIA: And the second one at Savannah River National Lab, the second largest one. It's only one hour and half from where I live. So if the key point, which I really want to point out for everyone, if I hope it never happened, if any leaks on this facility, there is no escape route, right? So for anyone, not only for us, for anyone so, and that's why we need to do everything which we can prevent it.

JUDY: Yeah, OK..

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: MOF is a sponge, sort of because it's a very open grid. So can you store hydrogen gases?

NATALIA The answer is yes, they are very good for CO two capture, right for carbon dioxide capture, for hydrogen storage. Professor Omar Fajal, two years ago, said how he developed the technology, and now it's a company who is doing aware like warfare agent degradation, right? So masks and first responders, right? So wearing the suits, which actually degrade all the bad stuff, right? While you wearing that. So it's a lot of opportunities, right? In going from the optical devices up to electronics, goes to photosynthesis or hydrogen storage. Yes, they are multifunctional platforms, in a sense. 

QUESTION FROM MAN IN AUDIENCE: So it could be a battery of sorts, with a lot of high density energy…

NATALIA: And that's what some of my colleagues doing as well. 

MAN: Great. 

JUDY: It must be very gratifying to be involved in science that you can clearly see applications happening even as you're working on on the science.

NATALIA: I cannot speak for everyone, but as a scientist, I really love science. That's why we are working in the science, right? The question in fundamential science is when do we move to this next stage. It can be us, it can be our kids, or even move forward, right? But we cannot stop working on that. We can not go backwards. We need to move forward, right? 

JUDY: Better living through chemistry…that was a slogan, right?

GEORGE: DuPont..

JUDY: DuPont, yes.

JUDY: (55:16) One more from the front row.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: What's known about how exposure to these materials, how they might impact the human body, and are there some that are more toxic than others, or people that are more sensitive to certain materials,

NATALIA: As the same as, I would say, as any pills, right? Any like, I'm not allergic to anything except one thing I can tell you, it's a orange juice Tropicana. That's only thing which I'm allergic in my life, despite I'm working with, like, toxic stuff, right? So the same thing, which is like it's, you need to make it safe, but I cannot say, like all of us individual, right? So your body is, like, it's a chemistry plant, right? So is this going to be allergic or not?

 I don't know, but they keep going like, you can make it safe, you can make it not toxic, you can make it acceptable, right?  And there are people doing that.

GEORGE: Well, I'm afraid that's about all the time we have. Thank you for being such a terrific audience, and our thanks to Telluride Science for making these talks possible.

(APPLAUSE)

 NATALIA: Thank you.

JUDY: And a special thank you to our speaker, Dr. Natalia Shushtova. 

GEORGE: That’s it for this edition of Science Straight Up.. A big thank you to our sponsors, Alpine Bank and the Telluride Mountain Village Owners’ Association. And thanks to our audio engineer, Dean Rolley.

JUDY: Mark Kozak is Executive Director and CEO of Telluride Science…Cindy Fusting is Managing Director and CFO.

GEORGE: Sara Friedberg is Lodging and Opeations Manager and Annie Carlson is Director of Donor Relations.

JUDY: If YOU want to donate to the cause, go to Telluride Science-dot-ORG.

GEORGE: You can also hear us there,  also on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember to look for Science Straight Up. I’m George Lewis.

JUDY: And I’m Judy Muller, inviting you to join us next time right here on Science Straight Up. 

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