CAREER: Revolutionizing organic liquid separations via molecular sieving membranes

我们目前的生活水平高度依赖于我们消耗的材料和能源，包括塑料、汽车燃料和药品。这种生活水平的关键和实际后果之一是必须将含有化学混合物的原料分离成纯的（或至少是更纯的）形式，作为化学过程的原料。由于我们的材料和能源消耗的巨大规模，化学分离是世界一次能源预算的主要参与者：全球高达5-10%的能源使用（或每人每年约7.5吉焦）用于化学分离。通过设计更高效的工艺，可以减轻分离过程的这种沉重的能量负担。例如，先进的膜分离器——基于小分子之间的分子尺度分辨率——比现有的依赖热驱动相变的分离过程效率至少高10倍，通过将新技术引入这个世界范围的问题，开辟了抵消全球能源消耗的很大一部分的可能性。拟议的研究计划旨在推进对全球能源基础设施至关重要的节能流体分离工艺。CAREER项目将为通过有机溶剂反渗透（OSRO）提高化学分离的能源效率奠定科学基础，该技术利用膜根据大小和形状区分有机分子。该项目将探索模拟复杂饲料混合物的候选有机溶剂分子在OSRO膜中分子运输的扩散、吸附和渗透机制。将开发新的OSRO分离平台的基本结构-输运关系，这将导致合理设计用于有机液体分离的膜材料，探索OSRO分离的新实验和技术，所有这些都将导致有机液体可以通过反渗透分离的原理证明。这项提议的研究将为有机液体的渗透分离奠定基础，这有可能彻底改变化学、生物化学和制药工业的分子分离。本项目将培训一名研究生和两名本科生。教育外展计划包括外展工作，直接让实验室中的女性和代表性不足的少数民族参与进来，并领导对这些群体的持续外展工作。该项目将让学生参与有关实验室模块、化学分离的能源消耗的动手演示，并通过在线传播增加这些演示的影响。

Our current standard of living is highly dependent upon the materials and energy we consume, including plastics, automotive fuels, and pharmaceuticals. One of the critical and practical ramifications of this standard of living is the necessity for separating raw materials that contain mixtures of chemicals into pure (or at least purer) forms to serve as feedstocks for chemical processes. As a result of the vast scale of our material and energy consumption, chemical separations are a major player in the world's primary energy budget: up to 5-10% of all energy use worldwide (or ~7.5 GJ per person every year) is devoted just to the separations of chemicals. This heavy energy burden for separation processes can be alleviated through the design of more efficient processes. For example, advanced membrane separators - based on molecular-scale resolution between small molecules - are at least 10 times more efficient than existing separation processes that rely on thermally-driven phase changes, opening the possibility of offsetting a substantial fraction of global energy use by bringing new technology to this world-scale problem. The proposed research program seeks to advance energy efficient fluid separation processes critical to the global energy infrastructure. This CAREER project will lay the scientific foundation for increased energy efficiency of chemical separations through organic solvent reverse osmosis (OSRO) that utilizes membranes to differentiate organic molecules based on size and shape. The project will probe the diffusion, sorption, and permeation mechanisms of molecular transport in OSRO membranes for candidate organic solvent molecules that simulate complex feed mixtures. Foundational structure-transport relationships for the new OSRO separation platform will be developed that will lead to rational design of membrane materials for organic liquid separations, new experiments and techniques for exploring the OSRO separations, all of which will lead to proof-of-principle that organic liquids can be separated via reverse osmosis. The proposed research will lay the foundation for osmotic separations of organic liquids, which have the potential to revolutionize molecular separations in the chemical, bio-based chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. One graduate student and two undergraduates will be trained in this project. An educational outreach plan includes outreach efforts to directly involve female and underrepresented minorities in the laboratory, as well as lead on-going outreach efforts to these groups. The project will engage students in the creation of hands-on demonstrations regarding laboratory modules, energy consumption of chemical separations, and increase the impact of these demonstrations through on-line dissemination.