GOALI: Routes to Improve Performance for Membrane Separation of Next Generation Biofuels for Transportation

汽油中通常掺加植物提取的乙醇，但乙醇往往会增加汽油中的水含量，降低发动机性能。新的工程方法允许从植物来源生产其他燃料产品，最值得注意的是丁醇，它克服了与乙醇相关的上述问题。然而，丁醇产物在水中稀释，必须除去水。膜为丁醇回收提供了低成本的解决方案，但存在限制其实用性的性能权衡。这个资助机会学术联络与工业（GOALI）项目将研究一类新的材料，可以使这些膜的性能显着改善。该项目的成功完成不仅将推动这些膜的发展，还将通过与Promerus，LLC的合作加速其商业化。该项目将研究基于聚异戊二烯（PNB）的替代BCP系统; PNB可以表现出高玻璃化转变温度（200 °C）和可能的大自由体积，这通常是高Tg聚合物所不具备的，可以提高通量。BCP的一个关键挑战是开发适合于大批量制造并产生明确定义的微相分离结构的低成本加工路线。该项目旨在确定可控的高度可重复的微相分离结构的方法，并了解其基本的热力学，动力学和机械性能。最近，Promerus LLC开发了新的官能团耐受聚合引发剂;能够合成独特的官能化异丙基苯BCP。据推测，发达国家的形态将严重影响膜的性能与可能的权衡之间的通量和选择性与亲水/疏水域的大小。将使用一系列共聚物通过系统地改变组成、分子量和烷基侧链来测试这一假设，以了解BCP纳米结构如何起作用来提高性能。该项目的总体目标是了解共聚物的结构如何影响膜操作的关键性能，以及如何通过可扩展到大规模制造的加工技术控制这种结构。基本调查，以阐明形态-机械性能的关系和量化的影响，污垢和除垢的机械，形态和分离性能，所有作为一个功能的处理条件将进行研究。这项工作将为BCP的分离提供基本的加工-结构-性能关系，并使新材料设计能够商业化。

Gasoline is generally blended with plant-derived ethanol, however, ethanol tends to increase the water content in the gasoline and decreases the engine performance. New engineering approaches allow for other fuel products to be produced from plant-derived sources, most notably butanol, which overcomes the aforementioned issues associated with ethanol. However, the butanol product is dilute in water and the water must be removed. Membranes provide a low cost solution to the butanol recovery, but there are performance trade-offs that limit its utility. This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) project will examine a new class of materials that could enable significant improvements in the performance of these membranes. Successful completion of this project would not only advance these membranes, but also accelerate their commercialization through the partnership with Promerus, LLC.The project will examine an alternative BCP system based on polynorbornenes (PNB); PNB can exhibit a high glass transition temperature (200 °C) and likely large free volume generally absent for high-Tg polymers that could enhance the flux. One critical challenge for BCPs is the development of low cost processing routes that are suitable for high volume manufacturing and yield well-defined microphase-separated structures. This project seeks to determine methodologies to controllable highly reproducible microphase-separated structures and understand their fundamental thermodynamic, dynamic and mechanical properties. Recently, Promerus LLC has developed new, functional group-tolerant polymerization initiators; enabling the synthesis of unique functionalized norbornene BCPs. It is hypothesized that the developed morphology will critically impact the membrane performance with likely trade-offs between flux and selectivity with the size of the hydrophilic/hydrophobic domains. This hypothesis will be tested using a series of copolymers by systematically varying the composition, molecular mass and alkyl side chain to understand how the BCP nanostructure acts to improve performance. The overarching goals of this project are to understand how the structure of the copolymer impacts properties critical to membrane operations and how to control this structure through processing techniques extendable to large-scale manufacturing. Fundamental investigations to elucidate morphology-mechanical property relationships and quantify impact of fouling and defouling on the mechanical, morphological, and separation properties, all as a function of processing conditions will be research. This work will provide fundamental processing-structure-property relationships for BCPs for separations and enable novel material designs for commercialization.