Focus

Membranes are integral to many new energy systems, and require collaborations between membrane materials scientists, engineers, and systems researchers. Research and education in membrane processes at Penn State includes fuel cells, electrolyzers, separations, air and water purification, renewable energy, and chemical production (e.g., CO2 and reduced products).

Highlights

• Penn State has established national leadership in membranes through a new integrative Center funded by the National Science Foundation Industry–University Cooperative Research Centers Program (I/UCRC), directed by Prof. Andrew Zydney.
• Membranes are being developed for specific applications to enable new device operation regimes, such as high temperatures, alkaline or acidic environments, chemical production, or to withstand fouling and abrasion.
• Penn State has several faculty members studying membranes in detail, but there is a larger pool of researchers using membrane materials for specific applications. These communities – membrane makers and users – need to work together across interdisciplinary fields.
• Membrane cost and performance are key factors in many new renewable energy technologies, including salinity gradient energy, thermal and other advanced batteries, chemical production, and separations.

Goals

• Increase impact in membranes research through additional faculty hires.
• Develop greater industrial connections for funding through I/UCRC that leverages membranes in areas outside of the current main focus (bioprocessing).
• Improve advertising for growing the general knowledge of the importance of membranes, and success of the membrane program at Penn State.
• Develop established courses in membrane processes.

Overview

Membranes are separation materials that are used to purify, concentrate, and recover key ions and molecules during various processes. For instance, membranes serve critical roles in gas purification (e.g. separation of CO2 from CH4), chemical separation (in biotechnology applications or for water desalination) in energy technologies such as fuel cells and batteries (as solid electrolytes for ion transport), and many other energy and environmental technologies where a semipermeable barrier is required. Interest and applications of membrane processes has been rapidly expanding due to the importance of themes such as alternative energy, low-energy industrial processing and separations, process intensification, resource recovery, and distributed chemical manufacturing. This growth is complemented by the introduction of renewable energy sources and new concepts in clean energy such as harvesting the energy of salinity gradients. Membrane development is focused in materials science, polymer, and chemical engineering, with the applications of membranes spanning environmental engineering, mining and critical elements separations, green energy, electrochemical technologies, and other applied science and engineering problems.

Membranes have played a critical role for a long time in chemical processing, but a key new area of research at Penn State is in purification of new medicines in the bioprocessing industry. The most important membrane activity on campus is the recently-awarded National Science Foundation I/UCRC headed by Prof. Andrew Zydney in Chemical Engineering. This I/UCRC is a node of the MAST center out of University of Colorado. MAST is a broad-based program focusing on the needs of industry. While current activities in the center are focused on our current industrial partners in bioprocessing and membrane characterization, topics are not limited to this area. Thus, as the center builds momentum, the activities at Penn State can expand into other areas under this program.

Membranes are critical to many new areas of energy research. At Penn State, in energy research there is currently a focus on applications in advanced batteries and fuel cells, with large industries that can be served immediately by a robust research and engineering program in membrane materials. There are also developing technologies, for example thermal batteries, electrochemical synthesis, and other types of electrochemical cells which rely upon improved membranes for achieving increased performance. Since membranes support the development of these new technologies, there is continued need for coordination and leadership outside of the MAST program. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of membrane research, sustained teams are needed to seed and to develop robust programming across application areas such as chemical separations, green energy, and novel processing.