Title:
Understanding and controlling water-organic co-transport in carbon molecular sieve membranes
Understanding and controlling water-organic co-transport in carbon molecular sieve membranes
Author(s)
Yoon, Young Hee
Advisor(s)
Lively, Ryan P.
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Abstract
Addressing water scarcity and pollution is important for global sustainability and environmental conservation. Industrial wastewater management plays a critical role in mitigating water pollution and ensuring safe water supplies. Membrane separation has emerged as a cost-efficient and highly effective approach for separating water from dissolved organic solvent contaminants. This dissertation focused on exploring the potential of a scalable rigid microporous material as a membrane for achieving desired separation performance in water and organic solvent separation. Carbon molecular sieve (CMS) is investigated as an advanced membrane material known for its impressive separation performance in gas and organic solvent separation. This study focused on p-xylene as an organic contaminant, which is a common aromatic organic solvent encountered in industrial wastewater. Overall, the study sought to understand a structure-transport relationship of water-organic solvent mixture in CMS membranes to optimize the utilization of CMS membranes for the water-organic separation.
The research examined the structure of amorphous CMS membranes derived from the PIM-1 (polymer of intrinsic microporosity-1) precursor. Experimental findings provided valuable insights into the microporous structures of CMS. Then, the transport studies on water and p-xylene vapors in CMS membrane derived from polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) was performed using a
sorption-diffusion (SD) model. The investigation extends further to PIM-1 (polymer of intrinsic microporosity-1) derived CMS membranes fabricated under various conditions to achieve different micropores structures and surface chemistries. We were able to confirm that the separation performance of water and p-xylene can be controlled via adjusting the properties CMS membranes. The study further investigated the transport of water and the dilute concentration of p-xylene in the liquid phase, in PIM-1 derived CMS hollow fiber membrane using the SD model.
Overall, this research may provide valuable insights for the engineering and optimization of CMS membranes for water-organic separation challenges by understanding the relationship between membrane structure, transport regime, and separation modality. What we learned here may be useful in understanding and developing CMS membranes as effective tools in addressing the complex separation of water and organic solvents in industrial wastewater treatment.
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Date Issued
2023-08-14
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Text
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Dissertation