(4am) 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.