Development of Novel Mesh-Adjustable Molecular Sieves and Their Membranes for Challenging Separations

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0930079JeongThis NSF award by the Chemical and Biological Separations program supports work by Professor Hae-Kwon Jeong at Texas A&M University to develop innovative temperature-responsive molecular sieves whose mesh sizes are continuously controllable at the scale of common gas molecules and to fabricate their membranes for high resolution separation of commercially important gas molecules, in particular, propene/propane. Mesh-adjustable molecular sieve (MAMS) based on a metal-organic framework (MOF) has recently shown remarkable control of mesh size from 2.9 Å to 5 Å, demonstrating the unprecedented potential for high resolution gas separation including propene/propane mixtures. These novel mesh-adjustable molecular sieves have great potential to transform the current paradigm of kinetic-based membrane separations via precise control of mesh size (i.e., extremely high resolution separation of gas molecules of small size disparity). The intellectual merit of this work is fourfold. First, this work will enable the PIs to determine if the novel mesh-adjustable molecular sieves and their membranes can be successfully designed and synthesized to address separations which are not currently feasible with current membranes. Second, the proposed synthesis work will lead to a set of truly transformative mesh-adjustable molecular sieves. Third, the mesh-adjustable molecular sieve membranes will potentially transform kinetic-based gas separations due to their unprecedented tunability of mesh size. Forth, the proposed research will be built on the PIs? previous results: a series of novel MOF-based molecular sieves with unprecedented controllability of their mesh sizes and fabrication/testing of metal-organic framework (MOF) membranes with controllable microstructure.The broader impacts of this work are fourfold. First, the development of membranes capable of performing propene/propane separation will lead to a technology that is much less energy-intensive than the current practice of distillation, thereby leaving a much smaller carbon footprint. Second, while the focus of this work is propene/propane separation, the materials investigated here will be relevant to other difficult separations facing the chemical and petrochemical industries such as N2/CH4 and n-/i-C4H10 in both membrane and powder (i.e., adsorbent) forms. Third, the collaborative nature of the work, spanning organic/inorganic material design and synthesis, characterization, and membrane fabrication and testing, will lead to a truly multidisciplinary research experience for the students (two graduates and one REU undergraduate) involved. Fourth, the educational outreach activity development of science videos based on the proposed research will positively impact K-12 education by increasing public interest in science and engineering.