(430c) Materials Engineering of Large Scale Separation Devices

Advanced materials, especially in the form of membranes and sorbents, offer opportunities to achieve a full 10X reduction in separation process energy intensity when properly designed and deployed. Successful examples will be discussed to show that materials science must be leveraged by materials engineering to achieve economically viable reductions in energy intensity across the spectrum of large scale separation processes. Emerging examples where materials engineering can enable the use of advanced separation materials to create high performance large scale devices will be highlighted. Combining materials science and engineering requires the capabilities of the chemical engineering discipline, especially those in the Materials Engineering & Science Division. Despite this intrinsically excellent match with our discipline, a new and broader cooperation with large scale separation device suppliers is required to succeed, and this will be illustrated by examples. Success in this endeavor will have a large and favorable impact on energy efficiency and the carbon footprint in energy intensive industries. Moreover, adopters of the more efficient technology will enjoy a competitive advantage if deployment occurs economically by proper design and advanced manufacturing approaches.