Research Seminar

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Dr. William J. Koros

Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Membranes
Roberto Goizueta Chair in Chemical & Biomedical Engineering--Georgia Institute of Technology

"Enabling Low Energy Intensive Large Scale Separations via Advanced Membrane Processes"

Friday, March 27, 2009
2:00 p.m.
Othmer Hall, Room 110
Reception to follow
Open to the public



ABSTRACT

In energy-intensive industries like those in the petrochemical sector, most large-scale separations still rely upon thermally driven operations such as distillation.Energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions associated with such separations could be reduced by more than a full order of magnitude in cases where thermally driven separation processes can be eliminated. While understandable in thermodynamic terms, a new generation of separation materials and devices is required to implement such a vision.Nanostructured membranes have emerged as the leading candidates to enable a fundamental reduction in energy intensity for large scale separations.To have a major impact, the full spectrum of nanostructured materials ranging from pure inorganics and carbons to pure organic polymers must be included.Hybrid materials containing low volume percentages of molecular sieve nanoscopic dispersed phases in a polymer continuous phase have already shown promising results.Such work, however, must be extended greatly to achieve the precise separations required to impact the full range of high energy intensity separations relevant to bulk commodity separations impacting global energy consumption.Identifying and pursuing practical approaches to achieve these and other revolutionary materials requires cooperation of chemical engineers with materials scientists and systems modelers.Based on this perspective, a path forward is proposed to the next generation of membranes suitable for processing the challenging feed streams that must be handled to significantly improve the efficiency of energy use in large scale separations.

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Bill Koros is a leader in the development and characterization of specialized morphologies useful for advanced separation membranes.He is currently the Roberto C. Goizueta Chair and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Membranes at the Georgia Institute of Technology.He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas.He has served on the faculties of Chemical Engineering at the North Carolina State University, The University of Texas at Austin prior to his position at Georgia Tech.He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Membrane Science from 1991-2008.

Watch for details about our next Research Seminar on Friday, April 17, with featured speaker Dr. Pinar Akcora, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia.

About the Research luncheon series (RLS)

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Throughout the Research Luncheon Series, faculty of the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering present their research topics for the benefit of current and prospective graduate students, alumni, and chemical engineering professionals. During each luncheon, faculty give a 30-40 minute presentation, immediately followed by a question and answer period. The Department provides free pizza and soda from Valentino's. Typically there is no need to RSVP, however, pizza and pop are first-come, first-served. All interested students, faculty, alumni, and members of AIChE are encouraged to attend.

Research areas to be presented throughout this series include:

• Biocatalysis
• Biomaterials
• Biomedical Engineering
• Biomolecular Engineering
• Biotechnology
• Energy
• Environmental Engineering
• Heat Transfer
• Materials
• Modeling, Simulation & Theory
• Molecular Medicine
• Nanotechnology
• Polymers
• Reactors, Kinetics & Catalysis
• Separations
• Surface & Interface Science
• Thermodynamics
• Tissue Engineering
• Transport Phenomena, Fluid Mechanics & Fluid Dynamics

The next RLS meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 12-1:30 p.m., in Othmer Hall, Room 205. The speaker for this date will be Dr. Selim Elhadj of the Biosecurity and Nanosciences Laboratory (BSNL), Chemistry, Materials, Earth and Life Sciences (CMELS) in Livermore, California.