SusChEM: Sustainably derived high performance nanofiltration membranes with vertically aligned nanopores for organic contaminant removal and water purification

国际和平研究所名称：ChineumOsuji Proposal编号：CBET 1703494获得清洁水是改善或保持人类生活质量和提高经济生产率的先决条件。纳滤作为去除水中多价离子和有机污染物的一种经济有效的方法是至关重要的。它越来越多地被用于工业废水的排放前处理和回收，以及解决农药、药品和个人护理产品等污染物的分离问题。该项目解决了使用可持续材料改善当前最先进的纳滤膜性能的需要。主要目标是利用可伸缩的方法从植物来源的材料中制备高度有序、定向的纳米孔膜，并对这些膜的性能进行表征。这里开发的膜的工业相关性和潜在效用代表着更广泛的影响，具有重大的社会相关性。该项目涉及一系列其他更广泛的影响，包括K-12外联、以环境补救为重点的课程开发和学生培训。自组装纳米材料作为高性能纳滤膜的潜力对理解和控制这类体系中的结构-性质关系有很大的帮助。利用可持续材料实现刻意的纳米结构膜，需要开发材料和方法来引导适用的分子物种在与膜相关的形状因数中自组装。这个项目就是以这样的努力为中心的。主要目标是使用可持续材料可扩展地制造和表征用于净水的高性能纳滤膜。精确设计的分子模板将被用于指导植物来源的单体的自组装，以形成有序系统。在适当的限制条件下，这些有序体系通过紫外光诱导单体的交联和随后的分子模板的去除来产生定向的纳米多孔聚合物薄膜。PI将检查基于植物衍生材料的自组装系统中的结构-性能关系，并将系统地表征所制造的膜的截留性能。将开发新的方法来控制亚微米范围内的选择性层的厚度，并在存在机械支撑层的情况下提供厚度控制。具体目标是：(1)利用植物油中的不饱和脂肪酸作为可再生原料形成和表征自组装纳米孔材料；(2)优化排列工艺和纳滤膜的组装；(3)纳滤膜的系统性能表征。

PI Name: Chinedum OsujiProposal Number: CBET 1703494Access to clean water is a prerequisite for improving or maintaining the quality of human life and boosting economic productivity. Nanofiltration is critically important as a cost-effective method for removing multivalent ions and organic contaminants from water. It is increasingly utilized for pre-discharge treatment and reclamation of industrial wastewaters and to address problems regarding the isolation of contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. This project addresses the need to improve the performance of current state-of-the-art nanofiltration membranes using sustainable materials. The overarching goal is to fabricate highly-ordered, aligned nanoporous membranes from plant-derived materials using scalable methods and to characterize the performance of these membranes. The industrial relevance and potential utility of the membranes developed here represent broader impacts with significant societal relevance. The project involves a range of additional broader impacts including K-12 outreach, curriculum development focused on environmental remediation, and student training. The potential of self-assembled nanostructured materials to serve as high performance nanofiltration membranes has contributed significantly to interest in understanding and controlling structure-property relationships in such systems. The realization of deliberately nanostructured membranes using sustainable materials requires the development of materials and methods to guide self-assembly of applicable molecular species in membrane-relevant form factors. This project is centered on such efforts. The overarching objective is the scalable fabrication and characterization of high performance nanofiltration membranes for water purification using sustainable materials. Precisely-engineered molecular templates will be used to guide the self-assembly of plant-derived monomers to form ordered systems. Suitably confined, these ordered systems yield aligned nanoporous polymer films upon UV-induced crosslinking of the monomers and subsequent removal of the molecular template. The PI will examine structure-property relationships in self-assembled systems based on plant-derived materials and will systematically characterize the rejection properties of fabricated membranes. New methods will be developed to control the thickness of selective layers in the sub-micron regime and to provide thickness control in the presence of mechanical support layers. The specific objectives are: (1) formation and characterization of self-assembled nanoporous materials using unsaturated fatty acids from vegetable oils as renewable feedstocks; (2) optimization of alignment processes and assembly of nanofiltration membranes; and (3) Systematic performance characterization of nanofiltration membranes.