Membrane Science Commons^™

Applications Of Ionic Liquids In Membrane Separation, Mohanad Kamaz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ionic liquids represent an emerging attractive material in membrane technology. The central theme of this doctoral dissertation is to develope novel membranes using ionic liquids. Two different approaches were used to prepare ionic liquid membranes including the immobilization of ionic liquid within the membrane pores or the use of pressure assembly method to deposit a selective ionic liquid layer on the top membrane surface.

In chapter 2, imidazolium ionic liquids with three different alkyl halides were successfully synthesized and used to prepare supported ionic liquid membranes (SILMs). SILMs preraper were tested for aqueous and nonaqueous applications. For nonaqueous applications, the …

Influence Of Single And Multiple Histidine Residues And Their Ionization Properties On Transmembrane Helix Dynamics, Orientations And Fraying, Fahmida Afrose

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since aromatic and charged residues are often present in various locations of transmembrane helices of integral membrane proteins, their impacts on the molecular properties of transmembrane proteins and their interactions with lipids are of particular interest in many studies. In this work, I used solid-state deuterium NMR spectroscopy in designed model peptide GWALP23 [GGALW(LA)6LWLAGA] with selective deuterium labels to addresses the pH dependence and influence of single and multiple “guest” histidine residues in the orientation and dynamic behaviors of transmembrane proteins. The mutations include Gly to His (G2/22 to H2/22), Trp to His (W5/19 to H5/19) and Leu to His …

Development Of Forward Osmosis Based Separations: A Novel Approach In Membrane Technology, Yu-Hsuan Chiao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tackling the worldwide severe water shortage, the membrane technology is considered to be the most efficient approach and hence, used widely as a cost-effective sustainable solution. “Forward osmosis (FO)” has been the major attention in recent time. FO uses osmotic pressure as the driving force to draw the water passing the membrane and achieve the desired separation performance. In general, it is considered to be a process with tremendous potential to resolve the present-day water shortage with extremely low energy consumption. However, the challenges of membrane and draw solution regeneration associated with FO processes must be conquered prior to their …

Engineered Carbon-Nanocatalyst Composites And Carbon Mixed ‎Matrix Membranes ‎For Water And Wastewater Treatment ‎, Mojtaba Abolhassani

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Carbonaceous materials such as graphene oxide, and activated ‎carbon have a wide range of ‎applications in water and wastewater treatment due to the high surface ‎area, unique structure, ‎and chemical and thermal stability. Carbon-based materials can be used as a ‎membrane, an ‎adsorbent, a support for nanomaterials, or ‎as a filler within membranes to remove contaminants ‎from water. In this research, the specific carbon materials and how their properties influence their ‎use and performance in ‎specific engineering applications is explored. ‎

Here, membrane filtration and adsorption/degradation of the water and wastewater using carbon-‎based material are investigated. The research firstly focuses …

Silver-Based Microbial Check Valve For Spacecraft Potable Water Systems, Jennifer Gaines

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As human space exploration increases, the development of a more efficient potable water treatment system suited for spacecraft becomes crucial. This Waste-management Education Research Consortium (WERC) challenge was designed to explore the viability of microbial control through the utilization of silver ions as a biocide for possible integration into the Tranquility Node 3 water purification system aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Current systems using iodine risk causing hyperthyroidism from overexposure; however, silver can be safely ingested without this side effect. After researching silver delivery methods including electrochemical ion production, controlled release, or a combination of the two, our team …

Task 1: Silver-Based Microbial Check Valve For Spacecraft Potable Water Systems, Eric Beitle

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As human space exploration increases, the development of a more efficient potable water treatment system suited for spacecraft becomes crucial. This Waste-management Education Research Consortium (WERC) challenge was designed to explore the viability of microbial control through the utilization of silver ions as a biocide for possible integration into the Tranquility Node 3 water purification system aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Current systems using iodine risk causing hyperthyroidism from overexposure; however, silver can be safely ingested without this side effect. After researching silver delivery methods including electrochemical ion production, controlled release, or a combination of the two, our team …

Imaging Characterization Of Current Generating Lipid-Protein Membranes, Joel D. Kamwa

Microelectronics-Photonics Student Works

Imaging Characterization of Current Generating Lipid-protein Membranes

Membrane-Based Separation Processes For Treating High Salinity Produced Waters, Kamyar Sardari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Produced waters (PW) generated in the oil and gas industry within the United States often contain extreme levels of total dissolved solids (TDS). These high TDS waste streams need to be treated cost-effectively as the costs associated with the current management techniques can exceed 15 USD per barrel of discharged PW. Thermally and osmotically-driven membrane separation technologies can show promising potential for treating high TDS waste streams, as onsite low-grade waste heat may be used for their operation. In this dissertation, the application of membrane distillation (MD), forward osmosis (FO) and a hybrid FO-MD process for treating synthetic and actual …

Design Of Peptoid-Based Coating To Reduce Biofouling In Gas Exchange Devices, Neda Mahmoudi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, membrane technology has been used commonly in biomedical area. However, membrane fouling is a widespread problem in different applications. One method to minimize fouling is through surface modification of membranes. My research explores a novel polymer to minimize nonspecific protein adsorption in biomedical applications.

It firstly focuses on grafting the electrically neutral NMEG peptoid, containing 2-methoxyethyl side chains, to polysulfone (PSU) membrane via polydopamine. Contact angle measurements indicated that the hydrophilicity of the peptoid-grafted membranes was significantly improved while the pore size and strength of the membranes remained unchanged. The modified membranes showed an improved fouling resistance …

Wafer Enhanced Electrodeionization For Conversion Of Co2 Into Bicarbonate Feed For Algae Cultured Photobioreactors, Kayvan Afrasiabi

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The world has acknowledged climate change as a global crisis that demands considerable attention, with one of the largest culprit being carbon emissions from industrial processing and power generation. While reduction in carbon emissions is the principal action towards mitigating the effects of climate change, scientists and engineers have given increased attention to alternative sources of energy as well as methods of carbon sequestration to coax traditional manufactory and industry into environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. One technology of this nature is the use of wafer-enhanced electrodeionization (WE-EDI) membranes to convert gaseous carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industrial flue …

Sulfate Removal From Mine Impacted Waters, Tyler Shock

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Woo Pig Sulfate (WPS) has developed two methods for reducing levels of calcium sulfate in mine impacted waters, a “hot process” and a two-stage nanofiltration process. Both processes were designed to treat gypsum saturated water that is currently being pumped via interceptor wells to prevent the spread of a sulfate plume into a nearby community. Each solution was designed for Freeport McMoran’s Sierrita mine in Green Valley, Arizona, which was visited in order to gain insight about the problem. Below 250 ppm on the treated stream, nanofiltration and the hot process achieve overall recoveries of 84 and 99%, respectively. The …

Direct Potable Reuse Of Wastewater, Dakota Rusk, Molly Churchwell, Lauren Clark, Sabrina Castle, Boyce Bethel, Aaron Henry

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Water is essential to our societies and mankind. Currently, 844 million people across the globe lack access to potable water. By 2025, it is projected that half of the world population will be in a region of water stress. The water crisis is often thought of as a problem limited to places that have always struggled to have clean water, but it is now affecting new areas such as the southwest United States. With increasing population demands and drought, the feasibility of direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater is being considered. According to an EPA report in 2017, there are …

Direct Potable Reuse Of Wastewater, Aaron Henry, Molly Churchwell, Lauren Clark, Boyce Bethel, Dakota Rusk, Sabrina Castle

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Water is essential to our societies and mankind. Currently, 844 million people across the globe lack access to potable water. By 2025, it is projected that half of the world population will be in a region of water stress.5 The water crisis is often thought of as a problem limited to places that have always struggled to have clean water, but it is now affecting new areas such as the southwest United States. With increasing population demands and drought, the feasibility of direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater is being considered. According to an EPA report in 2017, there are …

Direct Potable Reuse Of Wastewater, Molly Churchwell

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Water is essential to our societies and mankind. Currently, 844 million people across the globe lack access to potable water. By 2025, it is projected that half of the world population will be in a region of water stress.5 The water crisis is often thought of as a problem limited to places that have always struggled to have clean water, but it is now affecting new areas such as the southwest United States. With increasing population demands and drought, the feasibility of direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater is being considered. According to an EPA report in 2017, there are …

Removal Of Carbamazepine From Drinking Water, Paola Marrero-Rivera, Adam Johnson, Jordan Alex Gadberry, Juan Rodriguez, Thomas Krumpolc, Zach Wiese

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to the increasing prevalence of prescription medication over the past few decades, pharmaceuticals have accumulated in various water sources. This has become a public health concern because many pharmaceuticals have limited research on the effects of chronic low-level exposure.One pharmaceutical of interest that has been detected in water sources is carbamazepine. Carbamazepine (CBZ) is a common pharmaceutical prescribed for the treatment of seizure disorders, neuropathic pain, and various psychological disorders. It’s mechanism of action is “sodium channel blocking,” which is the impairment of conduction of sodium ions in sodium channels. This, in effect, reduces nervous-system conductivity in key areas …

Sulfate Removal From Mine Impacted Waters, Luis Sagarnaga

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Woo Pig Sulfate (WPS) has developed two methods for reducing levels of calcium sulfate in mine impacted waters, a “hot process” and a two-stage nanofiltration process. Both processes were designed to treat gypsum saturated water that is currently being pumped via interceptor wells to prevent the spread of a sulfate plume into a nearby community. Each solution was designed for Freeport McMoran’s Sierrita mine in Green Valley, Arizona, which was visited in order to gain insight about the problem. Below 250 ppm on the treated stream, nanofiltration and the hot process achieve overall recoveries of 84 and 99%, respectively. The …

Direct Potable Reuse Of Wastewater, Boyce Bethel

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Water is essential to our societies and mankind. Currently, 844 million people across the globe lack access to potable water. By 2025, it is projected that half of the world population will be in a region of water stress.⁵ The water crisis is often thought of as a problem limited to places that have always struggled to have clean water, but it is now affecting new areas such as the southwest United States. With increasing population demands and drought, the feasibility of direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater is being considered. According to an EPA report in 2017, there …

Characterization Of Bacteriorhodopsin And Halorhodopsin Reconstituted In Lipid Bilayer Membranes, Joel Domkam Kamwa

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Motivated to produce electricity with photon activated ion pumps, the main purpose of this work was to characterize the photosynthetic membrane proteins bacteriorhodopsin (proton pump) and halorhodopsin (chloride pump). The proteins were re-suspended in lipid bilayers. For this work, an experimental set-up was built which included: chambers for lipid bilayer formation and characterization, lasers for ion pump activation, and an AxoPatch electrophysiology system for small photocurrent measurement. Lipid bilayer membranes were formed using mostly folding method: folding two monolayers together. The membranes were characterized by their resistance, capacitance, and generated photocurrent. Photocurrent was generated upon illumination of lipid-protein membranes with …

Peptoid-Modified Bicelles As Surrogate Cell Membranes For Membrane Protein Sensors And Analytics, Helya Najafi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Membrane-affiliated interactions are significant in understanding cell function, detecting biomarkers to diagnose disease, and in testing the efficiency of new therapeutic targets. Model membrane systems have been developed to study membrane proteins, allowing for stable protein structure and maintaining native activity. Bicelles, disc-shaped lipid bilayers created by combining long- and short-chain phospholipids, are the model membrane system of focus in this study. Bicelles are accessible from both sides and have a wide size range, which make them attractive for studying membrane proteins without affecting function. In this work, bicelles were functionalized with two peptoids to alter the edge and face …

Membrane Surface Engineering For Biochemical Applications, Anh T. Vu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Synthetic membranes have been frequently used for many fields, such as, the food and beverage, biopharmaceutical, and biofuel industries. In the beer industry, microfiltration frequently suffers from fouling due to the interaction between different species. It is shown that polyphenols can form cross-links with protein molecules, forming insoluble aggregates. However, by adding an optimal amount of polysaccharides these aggregates can be disrupted thus reducing fouling by the aggregates. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) is a powerful technique to locate the foulants inside the wet membrane in order to understand more about the behavior of fouling in microfiltration.

Membrane surface modification …

Membranes For Food And Bioproduct Processing, Alexandru Marius Avram

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modified membranes for process intensification in biomass hydrolysis

Production of biofuels and chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass is one of the leading candidates for replacement of petroleum based fuels and chemicals. However, conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into fuels and chemicals is not cost effective compared to the production of fuels and chemicals from crude oil reserves. Some novel and economically feasible approaches involve the use of ionic liquids as solvents or co-solvents, since these show improved solvation capability of cellulose over simple aqueous systems. Membranes offer unique opportunities for process intensification which involves fractionation of the resulting biomass hydrolysate leading to …

Removal Of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds Using Membrane Bioreactor, Mohanad Ali Abdulsahib Kamaz

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The presence of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceutically active compounds (PhAC) such as pesticides, personal care products, antibiotics and pharmaceutical compounds, in sewage, industrial, and domestic waters has extensively become the major concern for health and environmental organizations. These compounds have the ability to interact with mammalian endocrine system and disrupting their functions. The traditional activated sludge processes are designed to degrade solids, organic carbon and nitrogen loading. Although several treatment steps in a wastewater treatment plant can contribute to partial removal of EDCs, effective removal has been a challenge due to their resistant chemical and biological degradation and …

Hollow Fiber Membranes For Artificial Lung Applications, Lauren Reed

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Artificial lungs are in use, but difficult issues remain in the field of membrane development related to fouling issues. Currently there are external artificial lungs circulating blood outside the body, taking out the carbon dioxide, and inserting oxygenated blood back into the body. An example of this type of machine is the ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine currently used in hospitals. The ECMO takes over the functions for both the lungs and the heart but is only available for short term use by patients with respiratory failure due to infections [1]. The fibers in the machine develop fouling due to …

Plasmonic Pervaporation For Sustainable Mixture Separation, Ty Austin

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The U.S. Department of Energy suggests that ca. 40% of the total energy consumed in the chemical and refining industries is used for distillation.¹ One potentially energy efficient alternative is pervaporation, a membrane separation process that uses differences in solvent permeability and vaporization rates to encourage mixture separation. Pervaporation has become a valuable tool in the processes of producing biofuels, recovering water, and removing solvent.^2,3 However, implementation has been hindered by heating the feed to the membrane and cooling the unpermeated retentate to increase membrane throughput at a higher energy cost. Preliminary research has shown that locally heating …

Micellular Electrokinetic Chromatography For Studying Amyloid Beta Oligomer Membrane Affinity, Andrew Bryson

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Amyloid Beta (Aβ) was the major focus of this study. It is a peptide that is present in the brain with a high tendency to self-aggregate. When this protein aggregates, it forms oligomers and protofibrils which in turn are deposited as senile plaques in the brain. The reason for the concern with these plaques is their association with the neurological disorder Alzheimer’s disease. It has been found that the most dangerous oligomers are formed in a portion of the plasma membrane known as lipid rafts. The purpose of this study was to understand how micelles affect the aggregation properties of …

Separation Of Oil From A Brackish Water Stream, Kayli A. Quinton

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the past 40 years, a variety of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been developed and applied to mature and mostly depleted oil reservoirs. Chemical and sonic stimulation are two enhanced oil recovery methods in which emulsions are created either as a primary or secondary effect. The resulting emulsion viscosity is considerably lower than that of dry crude thus increasing permeability of and recovery from pay zones. During Chemical enhanced oil recovery, caustic or preformed surfactants are injected into oil reservoirs, which results in flooding and periodic breakthrough of stable oil-water emulsions. The emulsions from chemical enhanced oil recovery …

Evapoporometry: An Effective Analytical Technique For Membrane Pore Size Characterization Of Hollow Fiber Membranes, Alex J. Moix

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A new analytical technique called evapoporometry has shown to be an effective and inexpensive method for membrane pore size characterization. This technique is based on the correlation between vapor pressure and pore size as described by the Kelvin equation. Evapoporometry has many advantages over tradition pore size characterization techniques. This technique allows for large sample sizes, uses minimal equipment, is capable of analyzing membranes within a wide range of pore sizes, and provides a highly descriptive representation of the pore distribution. This research looks at the application of evapoporometry as a technique for characterization of hollow fiber membranes. Using the …

Effects Of Magnetically Induced Micro-Mixing On Nanofiltration Performance, Guanghui Song

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanofiltration (NF) is a relatively new membrane separation process mainly used for removing low molecular weight species from aqueous and non-aqueous solutions. NF membranes suffer from concentration polarization leading to membrane fouling thus compromised membrane performance. Magnetically responsive nanofiltration (NF) membranes functionalized with superparamagnetic nanoparticles (SPNs) attached to the chain ends of grafted polymer nanolayers have been shown to be effective in breaking concentration polarization at the membrane-liquid interface under an appropriate external oscillating magnetic field. Under an oscillating magnetic field, the movement of the polymer chains acts as micro-mixer leading to the suppression of concentration polarization and improved filtration …

Modified Polysulfone Nanofiltration Membrane Synthesis For Hydraulic Fracturing Water Recycle, Blake Alexander Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of hydraulic fracturing has resulted in significant increases in the yield of oil and natural gas, as water pumped into wells at high pressure cracks the formations and releases the hydrocarbons that are locked in the rocks. This process has created large volumes of brackish water that is very difficult to process and is often disposed of into injection wells. Suspended solids and some dissolved solids are more readily removed, but the multivalent ions found in certain salts can precipitate in a well and complicate the reuse of flowback in future hydraulic fracturing operations.

Nanofiltration, a membrane separation …

Recycling Wastewater For Hydraulic Fracturing By Use Of Nanofiltration Membranes, Haley D. Cleous

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hydraulic fracturing creates large volumes of produced water, contaminated with organics, suspended solids, and dissolved minerals. This water must either be disposed of in injection wells or treated for reuse. One option is to use a combination of ultrafiltration and nanofiltration to treat this water and reuse it in future hydraulic fracturing wells. The object of this study was to test and characterize commercial nanofiltration membranes. The work done for this project will lead to future work in modifying membranes to improve the rejection of desired components.