Exploring metamaterials for the control of mass diffusion
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Restrepo Florez, Juan Manuel
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Abstract
In this work we have explored the use of metamaterials theory for the design of materials and devices able to control mass diffusion at will. First, we focus in the design of metamaterials able to control the diffusion of a single chemical species (Chapters 3-4). In this first part we establish the use of coordinate transformation techniques to obtain benchmark metamaterials (cloaks and concentrators), we explore the design space for these devices, and establish a proper effective medium framework allowing the realization of mass diffusion metamaterials. In the second part of this work we extend our findings to the design of devices able to control simultaneously and independently the flux trajectory of two arbitrary chemical species (Chapters 5-6). These metamaterial devices are able to sort chemical species by sending molecules toward opposite places. Finally, in the third part of this work we study the use of tailored anisotropic materials (metamaterials) in the contexts of membrane based gas separations (Chapters 7-10). In this part we show how metamaterial membranes operate different than typical isotropic materials generating at least two permeate fractions instead of one. We also show how the use of anisotropic materials can significantly increase the selectivity in membrane separation processes, importantly this increase in selectivity occurs at the expense of reducing the collection area on the permeate site. The study and characterization of anisotropic membranes in the context of membrane separations is a new area, we believe that this new kind of materials may pave the way toward the design of new separation processes and to reconceive existing ones.
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2019-03-29
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Dissertation