Membranes for Gas Separation
Application of membrane-based processes to non-liquid separations have been fairly limited. While many areas like natural gas purification and petrochemical refining would clearly benefit from using membranes in terms of energy savings, yet conventional thermal processes continue to dominate. State-of-the-art membrane materials like polymers typically fail to address the performance requirements for such applications. Our group designs and creates advanced membrane materials which successfully overcome these performance limitations. We primarily focus on creating carbon molecular sieve membranes which offer a unique combination of excellent separation properties with scalable processability. A major focus of our research group is the design and development of carbon molecular sieve membranes for natural gas upgrading, CO2 capture and hydrocarbon separations.