Membrane Science Commons^™

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 …

Preparation Of Nano-Size Ceramic Membrane From Industrial Waste, Shereen K. Amin, Mai H. Roushdy, Chakinaz Aly El-Sherbiny, Heba Mohamed Abdallah, Magdi F. Abadir

Chemical Engineering

Industrial ceramic wastes are becoming an increasing problem worldwide. Recently, this problem has attracted social concern due to the growing amounts of waste despite the measures and precautions that have been taken worldwide aiming at managing such wastes. One promising solution that has been recently researched consists incorporating such wastes in ceramic bodies which besides minimizing the waste load often improve the quality of the ceramic body. Roller kilns used in the production of ceramic tiles are routinely ground to remove traces of contamination. The fine ground powder is usually discarded as a useless waste. In the present paper, the …

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 …

Development Of Pvdf Membrane Nanocomposites Via Various Functionalization Approaches For Environmental Applications, Douglas M. Davenport, Minghui Gui, Lindell E. Ormsbee, Dibakar Bhattacharyya

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Membranes are finding wide applications in various fields spanning biological, water, and energy areas. Synthesis of membranes to provide tunable flux, metal sorption, and catalysis has been done through pore functionalization of microfiltration (MF) type membranes with responsive behavior. This methodology provides an opportunity to improve synthetic membrane performance via polymer fabrication and surface modification. By optimizing the polymer coagulation conditions in phase inversion fabrication, spongy polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes with high porosity and large internal pore volume were created in lab and full scale. This robust membrane shows a promising mechanical strength as well as high capacity for loading …

An Overview Of Production And Development Of Ceramic Membranes, Shereen Kamel Amin, Heba Mohamed Abdallah, Mai H. Roushdy, Chakinaz Aly El-Sherbiny

Chemical Engineering

Ceramic membranes became one of the most important ceramic products because of their numerous benefits. Many attempts have been made by researchers to produce ceramic membranes with modified properties by varying their raw materials. Some of these attempts included incorporating wastes into their production process. Examples of such waste are fly ash wastes, glass waste, mud resulting from the hydro cyclone laundries, cortical bone animal, coal gangue, sawdust, construction waste and rice husk. An ideal waste would be priceless waste while at the same time assisting minimizing pollution. Such a situation deals with a dual economic and environmental aspect. This …

Design And Commissioning Of A Community Scale Solar Powered Membrane-Based Water Purification System In Haiti, Shavin Pinto, Yung Wong, Kyle Fennesy, Yan Tang, Marc Compere

Publications

This paper presents the design and commissioning of a solar powered water purification system at the Ryan Epps Home for Children (REHC) in Michaud, Haiti. This system supplies clean drinking water to the 200 children who live and go to school at REHC and also to the community in the form of a micro-business. This micro-business is the mechanism for income generation for sustainable system operation. The purifier uses a three stage filtration system with a disc-type sediment filter, a 0.1 micron ultrafiltration membrane, and an ultraviolet light for disinfection. The backwash cycle extends the life of the ultrafiltration membrane …

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 …

Elevated Test Pressure Significantly Reduces Dynamic Accumulation Oxygen Transmission Rate (Astm F3136) Measurement Time For Barrier Packaging Films, Bruce A. Welt

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Measurement of gas transmission rates of materials is important for successful package design. The dynamic accumulation (DA) method (ASTM F3136) is becoming increasingly popular for measuring oxygen transmission rate (OTR) due to its simplicity and low cost. However, measurement time increases with barrier properties of materials, limiting measurement throughput. A dynamic accumulation measurement prototype capable of operating up to 1,000 psig was developed in order to accelerate gas transfer by boosting concentration gradients via elevated absolute pressures. Results show that measurement results were independent of test pressure while measurement times were substantially reduced. These results also suggest that gas transmission …

Enhancing Grain Boundary Ionic Conductivity In Mixed Ionic–Electronic Conductors, Ye Lin, Shumin Fang, Dong Su, Kyle S. Brinkman, Fanglin Chen

Faculty Publications

Mixed ionic–electronic conductors are widely used in devices for energy conversion and storage. Grain boundaries in these materials have nanoscale spatial dimensions, which can generate substantial resistance to ionic transport due to dopant segregation. Here, we report the concept of targeted phase formation in a Ce0.8Gd0.2O2−δ–CoFe2O4 composite that serves to enhance the grain boundary ionic conductivity. Using transmission electron microscopy and spectroscopy approaches, we probe the grain boundary charge distribution and chemical environments altered by the phase reaction between the two constituents. The formation of an emergent phase successfully avoids segregation of the Gd dopant and depletion of oxygen vacancies …

Designed Synthesis Of Nanoporous Organic Polymers For Selective Gas Uptake And Catalytic Applications, Pezhman Arab

Theses and Dissertations

Design and synthesis of porous organic polymers have attracted considerable attentions during the past decade due to their wide range of applications in gas storage, gas separation, energy conversion, and catalysis. Porous organic polymers can be pre-synthetically and post-synthetically functionalized with a wide variety of functionalities for desirable applications. Along these pursuits, we introduced new synthetic strategies for preparation of porous organic polymers for selective CO₂ capture.

Porous azo-linked polymers (ALPs) were synthesized by an oxidative reaction of amine-based monomers using copper(I) as a catalyst which leads to azo-linkage formation. ALPs exhibit high surface areas of up to 1200 …

Modeling Of Nitrogen Separation From Natural Gas Through Nanoporous Carbon Membranes, Moustafa A. Soliman, A A. Al-Rabiah, Abdelhamid M. Ajbar, F A. Almalki, Omar Y. Abdelaziz

Chemical Engineering

This work presents a theoretical investigation of the use of nanoporous carbon membranes for the separation of nitrogen from natural gas. A mathematical model to predict the performance of the membrane is developed. The model is a combination of the well known dusty gas model, which describes the transfer of multi-components mixture in porous media, together with a surface diffusion model. The model is first validated using the literature results for the separation of hydrogen from hydrocarbons mixture. The model is then applied to the nitrogen-hydrocarbons system. The membrane performance is evaluated in terms of nitrogen recovery, methane loss, nitrogen …

Long Term Blood Oxygenation Membranes, Joseph V. Alexander

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Hollow fiber membranes are widely used in blood oxygenators to remove carbon dioxide and add oxygen during cardiopulmonary bypass operations. These devices are now widely used off-label by physicians to perform extracorporeal blood oxygenation for patients with lung failure. Unfortunately, the hollow fiber membranes used in these devices fail prematurely due to blood plasma leakage and gas emboli formation.

This project formed ultrathin (~100nm) polymer coatings on polymer hollow fiber membranes. The coatings were intended to “block” existing pores on the exterior surfaces while permitting high gas fluxes. This coating is synthesized using surface imitated control radical polymerization.

The coating …

Biomolecule Localization And Surface Engineering Within Size Tunable Nanoporous Silica Particles, Daniel M. Schlipf

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Mesoporous silica materials are versatile platforms for biological catalysis, isolation of small molecules for detection and separation applications. The design of mesoporous silica supports for tailored protein and biomolecule interactions has been limited by the techniques to demonstrate biomolecule location and functionality as a function of pore size. This work examines the interaction of proteins and lipid bilayers with engineered porous silica surfaces using spherical silica particles with tunable pore diameters (3 – 12 nm) in the range relevant to biomolecule uptake in the pores, and large particle sizes (5 - 15 µm) amenable to microscopy imaging

The differentiation of …

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.

Effect Of Plasticizer On Oxygen Permeability Of Cast Polylactic Acid (Pla) Films Determined Using Dynamic Accumulation Method, Kurniawan Yuniarto, Bruce A. Welt, Aris Purwanto, Hadi Karia Purwadaria, Ayman Abdellatief, Titi C. Sunarti, Setyo Purwanto

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Polylactic acid (PLA) is becoming an increasingly important biopolymer for packaging applications. PLA brittleness limits its applicability. This study evaluated PLA properties with increasing amounts of added polyethylene glycol (PEG) plasticizer. Oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of cast films was determined using the newly available Dynamic Accumulation (DA) method. Arrhenius temperature sensitivity of OTR and polymer Permeability was also determined. Permeability of neat PLA is 4.848 ml mm (STP)/m² s kPa; hence, 4.84 ml mm (STP)/m² s kPa, 4.07 ml mm (STP)/m² s kPa and 5.42 ml mm (STP)/m² s kPa by adding PEG 1 %, 5% …

Membrane Compatibility With Switchable Polarity Draw Solutions For Use In Forward Osmosis Applications, Benjamin Joseph Coscia

Honors Scholar Theses

Water scarcity is problem being faced worldwide and present in every continent. Close to one-fifth of the world’s population has difficulty acquiring safe water, and the problem is worsening as populations continue to grow in poorer countries. As the availability of unimpaired freshwater sources dwindle, water sources, such as the oceans and saline ground waters, must be tapped. However, desalination technologies are very expensive due to a high energy requirement. Forward osmosis (FO) is a process which may be able to replace or become integrated with existing desalination technologies like reverse osmosis. FO relies on an osmotic agent, or draw …

Phase Transformations In Calcium Substituted Lanthanum Ferrite, Patrick M. Price

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Increasing world energy demands are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. To meet these demands, crude oil is increasingly being extracted from remote locations where natural gas pipelines do not exist. It is not profitable for oil and gas companies to transport natural gas by ship or truck from these remote locations so it is combusted on site in the form of gas flares. Critics oppose this practice due to the environmental impact from pollution and carbon emissions created during the flaring process. Oil and gas companies are eager to find profitable ways to eliminate natural gas lines in order …

Electrospinning Applications Air Filtration And Superhydrophobic Materials, Negar Ghochaghi, Adetoun Taiwo

Graduate Research Posters

Electrospinning is a widely applicable technique that generates non-woven fibers in the micro and nano range. In this project two of its applications are highlighted namely filtration media and enhancement of wettability. The first project demonstrates that electrospinning can be used to produce new fiber filtration media with controlled microstructure. The bimodal and unimodal orthogonal and random filters were made and characterized against their filtration efficiency and pressure drop. Figure of Merit (FOM) was also calculated and discussed. It is shown that the FOM increases when the electrospun fibers are arranged into alternating layers of aligned course and fine fibers. …

Nanofiltration Membranes From Oriented Mesoporous Silica Thin Films, Mary K. Wooten

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The synthesis of mesoporous silica thin films using surfactant templating typically leads to an inaccessible pore orientation, making these films not suitable for membrane applications. Recent advances in thin film synthesis provide for the alignment of hexagonal pores in a direction orthogonal to the surface when templated on chemically neutral surfaces. In this work, orthogonal thin film silica membranes are synthesized on alumina supports using block copolymer poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(propylene glycol)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (P123) as the template. The orthogonal pore structure is achieved by sandwiching membranes between two chemically neutral surfaces, resulting in 90 nm thick films. Solvent flux of ethanol through …

Functionalized Membranes For Environmental Remediation And Selective Separation, Li Xiao

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Membrane process including microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) have provided numerous successful applications ranging from drinking water purification, wastewater treatment, to material recovery. The addition of functional moiety in the membranes pores allows such membranes to be used in challenging areas including tunable separations, toxic metal capture, and catalysis. In this work, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) MF membrane was functionalized with temperature responsive (poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), PNIPAAm) and pH responsive (polyacrylic acid, PAA) polymers. It’s revealed that the permeation of various molecules (water, salt and dextran) through the membrane can be thermally or pH controlled. The introduction of …

Nanometer-Scale Membrane Electrode Systems For Active Protein Separation, Enzyme Immobilization And Cellular Electroporation, Zhiqiang Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Automated and continuous processes are the future trends in downstream protein purification. A functionalized nanometer-scale membrane electrode system, mimicking the function of cell wall transporters, can selectively capture genetically modified proteins and subsequently pump them through the system under programmed voltage pulses. Numerical study of the two-step pulse pumping cycles coupled with experimental His-GFP releasing study reveals the optimal 14s/1s pumping/repel pulse pumping condition at 10 mM bulk imidazole concentration in the permeate side. A separation factor for GFP: BSA of 9.7 was achieved with observed GFP electrophoretic mobility of 3.1×10^-6 cm² s^-1 V^-1 at 10 …

Iron And Iron Oxide Functionalized Membranes With Applications To Selected Chloro-Organic And Metal Removal From Water, Minghui Gui

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The development of functionalized membranes with tunable pores and catalytic properties provides us an opportunity to manipulate the membrane pore structure, selectivity and reactivity. By introducing the functional groups into membrane pores, dissolved metal ions and reactive particles can be effectively immobilized within the polymer matrix for toxic chloro-organic and heavy metal remediation in water.

A polyelectrolyte functionalized membrane platform with tunable pore size and ion exchange capacity has been developed for iron/iron oxide nano-catalyst synthesis and chlorinated organic compound (trichloroethylene, TCE and polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs) degradation. Highly robust polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) microfiltration membranes are used as the support with …

Layer-By-Layer Assemblies For Membrane-Based Enzymatic Catalysis, Andrew R. Tomaino

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

While considerable progress has been made towards understanding the effect that membrane-based layer-by-layer (LbL) immobilizations have on the activity and stability of enzymatic catalysis, detailed work is required in order to fundamentally quantify and optimize the functionalization and operating conditions that define these properties. This work aims to probe deeper into the nature of transport mechanisms by use of pressure-induced, flow-driven enzymatic catalysis of LbL-functionalized hydrophilized poly(vinyldiene) (PVDF)-poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-poly(allylamine hydrochloride) (PAH)-glucose oxidase (GOx) membranes. These membranes were coupled in a sealed series following cellulose acetate (CA) membranes for the elimination of product accumulation within the feed-side solution during operation. …

Bacteriorhodopsin-Based Sensors, Craig Friedrich, Donald Lueking, Mark Griep

Michigan Tech Patents

A sensor comprising a membrane containing bacteriorhodopsin. In one embodiment, the sensor comprises a layer of purple membrane between a first and a second electrode, wherein the electrodes are connected to a circuit such that a signal is produced when a charge is transferred across the membrane. In another embodiment, the sensor comprises a field effect transistor with a layer of purple membrane deposited on the gate. The layer of purple membrane may be further functionalized by adding fluorophores to the layer of purple membrane. The fluorophores may be deposited adjacent to the layer of purple membrane, or the fluorophores …

Sustainable Operations For Distillation Columns, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

Distillation process consumes about 40% of the total energy used to operate the plants in petrochemical and chemical process industries in North America. Therefore, sustainable distillation column operation requires responsible use of energy and reduction of harmful emission such as CO₂. The Aspen Plus ‘Column Targeting Tool’ (CTT) options in a simulation environment can help reduce the use of energy and hence CO₂ emission. The Aspen plus ‘Carbon Tracking’ (CT) together with the ‘Global Warming Potential’ options can quantify the reduction in CO₂ emission. The CTT is based on the practical near-minimum thermodynamic condition approximation and …

Application Of Electrospinning Technique In The Fabrication Of A Composite Electrode For Pemfc, Joshua Sightler, Eli Mcpherson, William A. Rigdon, Xinyu Huang

Faculty Publications

The Pt/C catalysts were mixed with carbon nanotube (CNT), Nafion™ dispersion and a fiber former, polymer poly-acrylic acid (PAA), to form an ink. The ink was deposited onto aluminum foil attached to a rotating collector via an electrospinning process. The ink composition, mixing procedure, and the E-spin parameters were studied for producing a uniform nanofiber mat on the aluminum substrate. The fiber-mat containing active catalyst ingredients was heat treated and decal transferred onto a Nafion membrane to form a membrane electrode assembly (MEA).