Influence of Confinement and Interfacial Interactions On the Behavior of Membranes and Materials for Energy Technologies

The rapid growth of energy-centric research efforts have stemmed from the clear and present need to improve energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to define alternative, renewable energy sources.  Membrane materials offer potential solutions to many of these issues.  Large scale, energy intensive industrial separation processes can benefit from the inherently low energy requirements of membrane-based separations, which do not require phase transitions.  Gas separation membranes also offer competitive opportunities for carbon capture.  Additionally, membranes are an integral part of energy storage and delivery technologies such as batteries and fuel cells. 

Efforts to maximize the productivity of membrane materials typically require developing structures with nano-scale dimensions.  In separation membranes, for example, because flux is inversely proportional to the separating layer thickness, productivity increases as film thickness is reduced.  Composite thin-film technologies offer the additional benefit of reducing the amount of high-performance material required in production of multi-component membranes. In addition to the significant deviations from bulk behavior that may occur in these nanostructured materials, they are typically comprised of highly non-equilibrium materials whose properties can change dramatically with time. 

There is currently a large gap in the fundamental understanding of how confinement and interfacial interactions influence performance and subsequent material stability.  Furthermore, the development of realistic accelerated aging tests and long-term predictive models will be required to prove the long term viability of these technologies.  If these factors were better understood, strategies to manipulate structure and interfacial interactions could be developed to further improve membrane material performance.  In addition to ideas for addressing these current opportunities, this poster will present research aimed at understanding the accelerated aging behavior of ultrathin films used in gas separation membranes and the influence of confinement and interfacial interactions on the performance of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) materials.