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

汽油通常与植物衍生的乙醇混合，然而，乙醇往往会增加汽油中的含水量，降低发动机的性能。新的工程方法允许从植物来源生产其他燃料产品，最著名的是丁醇，它克服了前面提到的与乙醇相关的问题。然而，丁醇产品在水中被稀释，必须将水除去。膜为丁醇回收提供了一种低成本的解决方案，但性能上的权衡限制了它的实用性。这项学术与工业联络资助机会（GOALI）项目将研究一类新的材料，这些材料可以显著改善这些膜的性能。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公司的合作加速其商业化。该项目将研究一种基于聚降冰片烯（PNB）的替代BCP系统；PNB具有较高的玻璃化转变温度（200°C）和较大的自由体积，这是高tg聚合物通常没有的，可以增强通量。bcp面临的一个关键挑战是开发适合大批量生产的低成本加工路线，并产生明确的微相分离结构。本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开发了新的功能基团耐受性聚合引发剂；从而合成独特的功能化降冰片烯bcp。据推测，发达的形态将严重影响膜的性能，可能在通量和选择性与亲疏水结构域的大小之间进行权衡。该假设将通过系统地改变共聚物的组成、分子质量和烷基侧链来测试，以了解BCP纳米结构是如何提高性能的。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来控制这种结构。将进行基础研究，以阐明形态-力学性质的关系，并量化结垢和去污对机械、形态和分离性质的影响，所有这些都是加工条件的函数。这项工作将为分离用bcp提供基本的加工-结构-性质关系，并使新型材料设计商业化。

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.