last update: March 21, 2001
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STC-ERSP Program Details Principal Investigator: William J. Koros Project Title: High pressure & SC CO2 separations (Former Prog #14) Research Plan Connectivity Outreach Components Requested Budget Allocation - Year 1 Plans for Additional Funding Research Plan Overall objectives Koros proposes to use fundamental principles to select crosslinked and uncrosslinked polymers that are able to perform molecular scale separation between CO2 and other solutes and suspended components present in a supercritical CO2 swelling that is found at supercritical conditions. We want CO2 to be significantly soluble and permeable in the polymers, but we don't want excessive (>25-30% swelling). During this time, we will also begin to characterize mixed CO2 /solute separations to develop techniques for the next phase of the work Years 2-3: Select the best 2-3 candidate materials from the previous phase of work described above for detailed characterization under demanding mixed CO2 /solute separation conditions. The effects of both upstream and downstream pressure on the separation performance of these materials will be characterized carefully. Also the effects of temperature changes in the vicinity of the critical temperature of CO2 will be carried out to help guide practical process implementation in the next phase of the work. Years 2-5: Select the best candidate material (or materials) from the previous phase of work described above for detailed implementation in a practical high flux asymmetric membrane. Furthermore, formation of a useable membrane module that could be evaluated by other groups in the Center focusing on process development would be a goal in this period. We will also focus on improving fundamental understanding of history dependent aging and penetrant-induced conditioning that we expect to occur with CO2. Thrust area of this proposal Thrust Area C: Rate Processes Connectivity Collaborators, multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary components A three-university collaboration will exist in the area of membrane fundamentals and development. The work at Texas will focus on rigid chained polymers such as the polyimides mentioned above. The work at NCState (Freeman) will focus on "super glassy" materials such as poly (trimethylsilyl propyne) and Teflon AF®. The work at Texas (Koros) and NCSU will primarily focus on sorption-diffusion based separations. The work at NCA&T (Ilias) will focus on inorganics and consider nano- and ultrafiltration processes primarily. The three collaborators know each other very well and have worked together through the professional organization, North American Membrane Society. We will maintain electronic contact and have periodic meetings at one another's sites by arranging for seminar visits by students and faculty between the sites as travel funds permit. Related work in other thrust areas Besides the membrane collaboration, collaborations at Texas exist between Koros and Sanchez and Johnston. Both Sanchez and Johnston are in the Molecular Thermodynamics Thrust Area B. The fundamental thermodynamics and modeling efforts by Sanchez and Johnston will help guide the interpretation of data and the planning of experiments to guide the work both at Texas and NCSU on the polymer interactions with high pressure CO2 . Sanchez and Johnston serve on PhD committees of Koros' students and vice versa, so this interaction will be strong. Sharing of resources (students, supplies, equipment, etc.) A single student will work on this project related to membrane materials and structure development at Texas; however, it is anticipated that some of the characterization equipment in Johnston's lab that is required for our work will be available. Some of my students have already benefited from such sharing of resources in the past when we were investigating supercritical drying of membranes formed by a precipitation process. Outreach Components Suggested K-12 Outreach Ideas Koros and the student funded through this project will be available in teacher workshops to present topics such as "Membranes Separators: Friendly Guardians in Action". I gave such a talk to a group of visiting high school students recently, and it was well-received. Requested Budget Allocation - Year 1 Personnel salaries
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