March 2021 Meeting

Using Molecular Modeling for Screening and Optimizing Membrane Based Separation Processes

 Sohail Murad

Professor and Chair 

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Illinois Institute of Technology

Speaker Biography:  

Dr. Sohail Murad is Professor and Department Chair of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Prior to this he was Head of Chemical Engineering at University of Illinois at Chicago, where he joined the faculty in 1979 after receiving a PhD from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. He spent 1981-82 at Exxon Research and Engineering Company at Florham Park, New Jersey, while on a leave of absence from the university. He was an ARO Research Fellow at the Ballistics Research Laboratory in 1985. He is the author of over 150 archival research publications and book chapters. He is/has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Computer Applications in Engineering Education, Scientific Journals International and Research Letters in Chemical Engineering. His research is focused on alternate energy and its efficient utilization, computational molecular modeling of fluids on membrane surfaces and pores and on heat and mass flows in nanosystems. It has been funded by the US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Army Research Office, American Chemical Society, IBM, Dow Chemical Company, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and other private and public funding agencies. He is an elected fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and member of several other professional societies. He holds honorary faculty positions at Nanjing University (China), Petra University (Jordan), and University of Karachi (Pakistan). He has given many keynote talks at national and international symposia, and has served on panels of the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, etc.

Presentation Abstract:

Separations consume almost 15% of the total global energy consumption. These separations ae currently almost exclusively thermal. Membrane based separations offer a energy efficient alternative, but the development of these methods has been challenging.  One possibility to address these challenges is to use computational tools for screening design alternatives rather than using traditional engineering techniques for lab scale to commercial designs. We will describe how molecular simulations using a method based on molecular dynamics can be used to study and design a wide variety of separation processes. These include reverse osmosis separation of brine, separation of air and N₂-CO₂ mixtures using zeolite membranes, pervaporation separation of alcohols, and selective permeation of heavy ions and protons in ion exchange membranes used in the new generation of redox batteries. Finally molecular simulations have been used to understand anomalous behavior observed in experimental studies.