Abstract
The rapid increase in global industrialization necessitates technology shifts in energy production, manufacturing, and carbon management techniques. Large energy costs in refineries, power plants, and manufacturing facilities using traditional separation techniques are currently a major opportunity for innovation. Approximately 10% of global energy use can be attributed to separation processes, with the vast majority of separations being “thermal” in nature (e.g., distillation). Significant energy and cost savings can be realized using advanced separation techniques such as membranes and sorbents. One of the major barriers to acceptance of these techniques remains engineering materials that are effective in the presence of aggressive industrial feeds.
The creation of robust materials-enabled advanced separators and their manufacturing into low-cost, energy-efficient devices to meet this global challenge will be the focus of the talk. Engineering novel materials—such as zeolitic imidazolate frameworks and polymers of intrinsic microporosity—and material combinations into hollow fiber separation devices shows promise for emerging separation applications. These include natural gas liquid fractionation, olefin/paraffin separation, carbon capture, and solvent recovery. Specifically, a new separation process known as “organic solvent reverse osmosis” that enables effective differentiation of isomer molecules will be presented. Synthesis and formation of advanced composite materials, mass transfer of small molecules through these materials, and an outlook for energy- and cost- efficient separations will be discussed. The dual advance of novel materials engineering and scalable separation device manufacturing can enable membranes and sorbents to be utilized in critical industrial separation processes.
Biography
Prof. Lively received his Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010, and spent nearly three years as a research engineer at Algenol Biofuels before joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor at the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. He published 25 papers and filed two U.S. patent applications during his time at Algenol Biofuels, where his work focused on developing energy-efficient liquid and vapor separation systems for downstream biofuel purification. His current research seeks to advance energy efficient fluid separation processes critical to the global energy infrastructure via application of chemistry-inspired materials design. In particular, his research group investigates fundamentals of adsorption and diffusion in hybrid polymeric and microporous materials to enable design of fiber-based separation devices. He is a recipient of the 2013 NSF BRIGE Award. He has over 50 peer-reviewed publications in the field of separations including Perspective articles in AIChE Journal and the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
If you have not received an invitation please contact Angela Lonergan a.lonergan@imperial.ac.uk if you wish to attend this seminar.