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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Probing Counterion Condensation Phenomena In Nanostructured Thin Film Block Copolymer And Random Copolymer Electrolytes, Qi Lei Jun 2020

Probing Counterion Condensation Phenomena In Nanostructured Thin Film Block Copolymer And Random Copolymer Electrolytes, Qi Lei

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes advanced metrology and molecular dynamics simulations for quantifying counterion condensation in block copolymer electrolyte thin films. The fraction of condensed counterions (fc) were quantified in nanostructured block copolymer electrolyte (BCE) and random copolymer electrolyte (RCE) thin films with new and established experimental techniques. The transition between the osmotic-controlled regime and condensation-controlled regime in BCEs and RCEs was identified using solution uptake measurements via a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and environmental grazing incidence small-angle x-ray scattering (GI-SAXS). The activity coefficients of ions in thin film were quantified experimentally and these values matched predictions from Manning’s Theory …


Engineering Ionomer Materials For Addressing Ohmic Resistances In Electrochemical Desalination And Waste Heat Recovery, Varada Menon Palakkal May 2020

Engineering Ionomer Materials For Addressing Ohmic Resistances In Electrochemical Desalination And Waste Heat Recovery, Varada Menon Palakkal

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Water scarcity and energy availability present important challenges that need to be addressed in the coming centuries. In the front of water technologies, desalting brackish water is of extreme importance for thermal electric power plants, chemical manufacturing plants, and other industrial operations that treat and reuse their water utilities. Membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) is an energy efficient desalination technique that has drawn attention from commercial entities. Most material research studies on MCDI focus on enhancing electrode performance while little emphasis is given to rationale design of ion-exchange membranes (IEMs). In this work, the ionic conductivity, permselectivity, and thickness for three …