I-Corps: Membrane Materials for Efficient Gas and Vapor Separations

I-Corps：用于高效气体和蒸汽分离的膜材料

• 批准号: 2123323
• 负责人: Roman Lubynsky
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-03-15 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2123323&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Membrane; Materials; Efficient; Gas

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a membrane technology for industrial gas and vapor separations. Effective membrane separation technology has the potential not only to reduce the energy consumption of chemical industries and accelerate the adoption of green alternative energy sources, but also to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases. Replacing existing energy-intensive processes with membranes may reduce annual U.S. energy costs by $4 billion and eliminate 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Deploying efficient membranes for the purification of hydrogen and natural gas also may accelerate the replacement of coal for electricity generation, while implementing membranes for carbon dioxide separation from flue gas may reduce the cost of carbon capture by 50%. Despite their great potential, however, the broad adoption of membranes has been hampered by the inadequate separation performance of existing materials. The proposed technology uses molecular filters capable of performing precise separations based on gas molecule size, and enables separations currently unaddressed in industry that may realize the full potential of energy-efficient membrane-based technologies. This I-Corps project focuses on the development of molecular filters engineered to have similar pore sizes to gas molecules, making them exceptional molecular sieves. Traditional membrane materials consist of single-stranded and flexible polymer chains that pack efficiently in the solid state, leading to virtually no pores in the membranes. This dense packing results in limited productivity because molecules could not diffuse quickly through the dense material. The materials had low selectivity because they could not distinguish molecules by size. The materials in the proposed design represent a shift in polymer chemistry and materials engineering. A rigid ladder, or double-stranded, molecular motif was incorporate into the polymer chains. These rigid ladder motifs prevent the dense packing of polymer chains in the solid-state, leading to abundant microporosity that may be leveraged for molecular separations. By systematically tuning the conformation of these ladder motifs, the productivity and selectivity of the membrane may be simultaneously tailored for specific applications. In addition to the potential applications in the energy sector, this project may provide important intellectual insights to guide the understanding and design of porous organic materials with other applications yet to be explored.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.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发用于工业气体和蒸汽分离的膜技术。有效的膜分离技术不仅有可能减少化学工业的能源消耗，加速绿色替代能源的采用，而且有可能减少温室气体的排放。 用膜替代现有的能源密集型工艺可以使美国每年的能源成本减少 40 亿美元，并减少 1 亿吨二氧化碳排放。采用高效膜来净化氢气和天然气还可以加速煤炭发电的替代，同时采用膜从烟气中分离二氧化碳可以将碳捕获成本降低50%。然而，尽管膜具有巨大的潜力，但现有材料的分离性能不足，阻碍了膜的广泛采用。所提出的技术使用能够根据气体分子大小进行精确分离的分子过滤器，并且能够实现目前工业上未解决的分离，从而可以实现节能膜技术的全部潜力。该 I-Corps 项目重点开发分子过滤器，其孔径与气体分子相似，使其成为卓越的分子筛。传统的膜材料由单链柔性聚合物链组成，可在固态下有效堆积，导致膜中几乎没有孔隙。这种致密堆积导致生产率有限，因为分子无法快速扩散穿过致密材料。 这些材料的选择性较低，因为它们无法按大小区分分子。拟议设计中的材料代表了聚合物化学和材料工程的转变。刚性梯或双链分子基序被纳入聚合物链中。这些刚性的梯形图案阻止了固态聚合物链的密集堆积，从而产生丰富的微孔，可用于分子分离。通过系统地调整这些阶梯基序的构象，可以同时针对特定应用定制膜的生产率和选择性。除了在能源领域的潜在应用之外，该项目还可以提供重要的智力见解，以指导多孔有机材料的理解和设计以及其他尚未探索的应用。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式支持：使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。