Structure/Property Relationships in Polymer Membranes for Water Purification and Energy Applications

Global demand for clean water and renewable energy sources is increasing, and both demands are inherently related because energy is required to purify water and, in most cases, purified water is required to produce energy. Polymer membranes are widely used in desalination applications, such as reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), forward osmosis (FO), and electrodialysis (ED), and they could be critical for many renewable power generation technologies, such as pressure-retarded osmosis (PRO), reverse electrodialysis (RED), membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI), fuel cells, and batteries. All of these applications rely, at least to some extent, on a membrane to control rates of water and/or ion transport.

Fundamental structure-property relationships are needed to guide the development of polymer membrane materials for these technologies. For desalination applications, polymers with simultaneously high water permeability and low salt permeability are desired in order to prepare membranes that can efficiently desalinate water. In potential field-driven applications, such as ED, RED, MCDI, and batteries, polymers with low ionic resistance are needed to preferentially transport certain ions while retaining others. Much remains unknown about the influence of polymer structure on even basic water and ion transport properties, and these relationships must be developed to assist the design of next generation polymer membrane materials for a variety of applications. The ability to tailor both the water and ion transport properties of a polymer will be critical for extending and optimizing technologies that can help address global needs for clean water and energy.

Selected Publications:

(12 total, 7 first author, 129 total citations – ResearcherID, May 2013, 2 first author submitted)

 

G.M. Geise, H.B. Park, A.C. Sagle, B.D. Freeman, J.E. McGrath, Water permeability and water/salt selectivity tradeoff in polymers for desalination, Journal of Membrane Science, 369 (2011) 130-138.

G.M. Geise, L.P. Falcon, B.D. Freeman, D.R. Paul, Sodium chloride sorption in sulfonated polymers for membrane applications, Journal of Membrane Science, 423-424 (2012) 195-208.

G.M. Geise, H.–S. Lee, D.J. Miller, B.D. Freeman, J.E. McGrath, D.R. Paul, Water purification by membranes: The role of polymer science, Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics, 48 (2010) 1685-1718.

W. Xie, H. Ju, G. Geise, B. Freeman, J. Mardel, A. Hill, J. McGrath, Effect of free volume on water and salt transport properties in directly copolymerized disulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) random copolymers, Macromolecules, 44 (2011) 4428-4438.

G.M. Geise, B.D. Freeman, D.R. Paul, Sodium chloride diffusion in sulfonated polymers for membrane applications, Journal of Membrane Science, 427 (2013) 186-196.