Phase II IUCRC at University of Arkansas: Center for Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology (MAST)

膜科学，工程和技术（MAST）中心专注于基于膜的分离。分离过程对于纯化和回收产品至关重要。 使用合成膜的分离通常具有成本效益。基于膜的分离具有广泛的工业应用，包括但不限于：化学、生物制药、制药、食品生产、生物医学设备以及石油和天然气生产。 膜对于海水淡化以及水的回收和再利用至关重要。MAST中心主要由公司以及联邦机构和国家实验室赞助。 工业成员代表主要的膜制造商和用户。 通过将它们聚集在一起，MAST中心促进了新膜，设备和工艺的开发，以应对新兴的分离挑战，从而通过促进科学进步，医疗保健进步，繁荣和福利直接解决国家利益。 MAST中心开发的新膜和膜分离工艺可以带来更实惠的人类治疗方法，新的特种化学品，并加快水回收和再利用的效率。 为阿肯色州大学的学生和研究人员提供的教育和培训机会直接导致了一支训练有素的劳动力队伍的发展，吸引了新的高科技产业到阿肯色州。MAST中心专注于为一系列行业开发新的膜、设备和工艺。 该中心由三所大学组成。 目前跨中心的研究主题，与赞助商的兴趣和基本挑战相一致，包括水处理，生物分离，膜制造和表征，有机溶剂回收，气体分离和屏障膜。 阿肯色州大学的网站专注于水回收和再利用，生物分离和使用建模工具来设计先进的膜和膜工艺。 一个主要的研究领域是从废水中去除新出现的污染物，以促进直接饮用再利用。 水产养殖业和农业的水循环和再利用是另一个主要推动力。 阿肯色州大学研究中心在了解市售膜和膜基单元操作的性能方面具有强大的推动力，这些膜和膜基单元操作用于去除污染物，如宿主细胞蛋白质和DNA，以及验证生物制药生产中的病毒清除。 多尺度建模的交叉主题导致对分离机制以及膜形成过程的独特基本见解。 这些见解将有助于设计新的先进膜，解决膜用户面临的分离挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology (MAST) Center focuses on membrane-based separations. Separation processes are essential to purify and recover products. Separations using synthetic membranes are often cost-effective. Membrane-based separations have broad industrial applications including but not limited to: chemical, biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, food production, biomedical devices and oil and gas production. Membranes are critical for desalination of seawater and for water recycle and reuse. The MAST Center is largely sponsored by corporations as well as federal agencies and national laboratories. The industrial members represent major membrane manufactures and users. By bringing them together, the MAST Center catalyzes the development of new membranes, devices and processes for emerging separations challenges thus directly addressing the national interest by promoting progress in science, advancements in health care, prosperity and welfare. The new membranes and membrane-based separation processes developed in the MAST Center can lead to more affordable human therapeutics, new specialty chemicals and accelerated efficiency for water recovery and reuse. The education and training opportunities provided to students and researchers at the University of Arkansas site are directly leading to the development of a highly trained workforce that is attracting new high-tech industries to Arkansas.The MAST Center focuses on developing new membranes, devices and processes for a range of industries. The Center consists of three university sites. Current center-spanning research themes, aligned with sponsor interests and fundamental challenges include water treatment, bioseparations, membrane fabrication and characterization, organic solvent recovery, gas separations and barrier membranes. The University of Arkansas site focusses on water recovery and reuse, bioseparations and the use of modeling tools to design advanced membranes and membrane processes. A major research area is the removal of emerging contaminates from wastewater in order to facilitate direct potable reuse. Water recycle and reuse for the aquaculture and agriculture industries is another major thrust. The University of Arkansas site has a strong thrust in understanding the performance of commercially available membranes and membrane based unit operations for removal of contaminants such as host cell proteins and DNA as well as validating virus clearance in the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. A cross-cutting theme on multi-scale modeling leads to unique fundamental insights into separation mechanisms as well as membrane formation processes. These insights will enable the design of new advanced membranes that address the separations challenges faced by membrane users.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.