PFI-TT: Commercialization of advanced bipolar membranes for applications in water treatment, carbon-dioxide capture and utilization, and environmental remediation

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to improve existing industrial processes using bipolar membranes (BPMs), such as the production of acid and base for water treatment, and enable new ones, such as capturing carbon dioxide from the ocean and air and using it to form fuels and chemicals. The global market revenue expected to increase from $90 M to $240 M by 2027, with greater growth possible if BPMs are used in emerging carbon dioxide capture and utilization applications. This project will enable commercial BPM processes to durably operate 10x faster than existing processes, therefore dramatically lowering cost. The proposed project will address key challenges to: (1) develop adhesive processes that maintain or improve upon the electrochemical performance in current small-scale research BPMs made without adhesive, which is essential for applications and long-term durability; (2) characterize and optimize the BPM ion selectivity and demonstrate improved performance in commercially relevant electrodialysis systems, (3) develop and use accelerated stress tests to forecast end-of-life electrodialysis performance for optimized BPMs and compare the performance and lifetimes to current commercial BPMs, while mitigating the identified degradation modes to implement designs that yield a lifetime of a minimum of two years, and (4) develop a scalable roll-to-roll process for scalable BPM fabrication.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.