Nanostructured Membranes

基于膜的分离过程通常比竞争技术需要更少的能量，但通常受到低流速和低选择性的限制。先进的纳米材料为膜设计提供了新的可能性，可以通过提高渗透率和选择性来彻底改变膜技术。预计纳米结构膜的性能将提高数量级，将提高加拿大和国外清洁水和能源分离系统的效率，包括天然气净化、石化分离、碳捕获和海水淡化。*纳米结构膜设计包括由碳纳米管或石墨烯等原子薄材料制成的设计。它们的结构包含原子尺度的流动通道，可以根据大小或亲和力拒绝分子，同时提供所选物种的快速流动。然而，在实现实用规模的高性能纳米结构膜方面仍然存在重大挑战。*这项研究计划将专注于开发纳米结构膜技术，并了解流体在其亚纳米结构中的流动。我们将针对其可伸缩性的两个主要障碍来开发原子薄膜：通过材料缺陷的泄漏和孔径不均匀。除了石墨烯之外的二维材料，包括那些具有固有纳米孔的材料，将被探索在膜系统中的优势。我们将开创新的碳纳米管膜设计，如石墨烯-碳纳米管膜和具有高孔壁的碳纳米管膜。我们将通过实验研究气体、液体和离子在纳米结构膜中单个亚纳米孔中的流动，以更好地了解最小长度尺度下的质量传输。*这项研究计划将导致基础纳米流体学的发现，并提高纳米结构膜技术的性能和可扩展性。这项技术承诺的显著性能收益将降低与加拿大相关的一些工业分离过程的能源成本。它将扩大膜在石油和天然气行业的天然气净化和石化分离中的使用。极高的渗透率将使接近大气压分离或富氧的经济碳捕获成为可能，从而减少排放发电。水处理和海水淡化过程的成本也将降低。在根本方面，我们将开发新的工具来测量比目前仪器检测极限更小的流体流动，并可能随着原子尺度的边界细节变得重要而发现新的流体流动现象。这项研究计划将推动纳米结构膜技术领域的发展，影响各种化学和机械工程分离过程。

Membrane based separation processes typically require less energy than competing technologies but are often limited by low flow rates and low selectivities. Advanced nanomaterials open new possibilities for membrane designs that could revolutionize membrane technology through enhanced permeance and selectivity. The orders of magnitude higher performance predicted for nanostructured membranes would improve the efficiency of separation systems for clean water and energy in Canada and abroad, including those for natural gas purification, petrochemical separations, carbon capture, and desalination.******Nanostructured membrane designs include those made from carbon nanotubes or atomically thin materials, such as graphene. Their structures contain atomic-scale flow passages that can reject molecules based on size or affinity while providing fast flow of the selected species. However, significant challenges remain to realize high performance nanostructured membranes on a practical scale. ******This research program will focus on developing nanostructured membrane technology and understanding fluid flow through their sub-nanometer structures. We will develop atomically-thin membranes by targeting the two major obstacles to their scalability: leakage through material defects and pore size non-uniformity. Two-dimensional materials beyond graphene, including those with inherent nanoporosity, will be explored for advantages in membrane systems. We will pioneer new carbon nanotube membrane designs, such as composite graphene-carbon nanotube membranes and membranes from carbon nanotubes with highly porous walls. We will experimentally study gas, liquid, and ion flow through single sub-nanometer pores in nanostructured membranes to better understand mass transport at the smallest length scale.******This research program will lead to discoveries in fundamental nanofluidics and improvements in the performance and scalability of nanostructured membrane technology. The significant performance gains promised by this technology would reduce the energy costs of a number of industrial separation processes relevant to Canada. It would expand the use of membranes in natural gas purification and petrochemical separation in the oil and gas industry. The extremely high permeance possible would enable economical carbon capture by near atmospheric pressure separation or oxygen enrichment for reduced emission power generation. The cost of water treatment and desalination processes will also be reduced. On the fundamental side, we will develop new tools to measure fluid flows on scales smaller than the detection limits of current instruments and may discover new fluid flow phenomena as the atomic-scale details of boundaries become important. This research program will advance the field of nanostructured membrane technology, impacting a variety of chemical and mechanical engineering separation processes.