image: Michele Galizia, a President’s Associates Presidential Professor in the School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, is leading a research team that recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that will develop improved polymer membranes to advance molecular separation and related materials science.
Credit: Photo provided by the University of Oklahoma
Michele Galizia, a President’s Associates Presidential Professor in the School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, is leading a research team that recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy that will develop improved polymer membranes to advance molecular separation and related materials science.
“We currently separate chemicals, gases and liquids using a thermal-based distillation technology that is very expensive to operate and consumes the equivalent of eight GJ of electricity per person on the planet per year,” Galizia said. “So, our goal is to develop next-generation devices for large-scale gas separation using polymer membranes instead of distillation.”
“These membranes must exhibit adequate long-term stability of at least three years if we want to make these processes feasible and profitable,” he added.
Galizia is working alongside Alberto Striolo, in the School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, and Marco Buongiorno Nardelli at the University of North Texas. Together they are focusing on fundamental science, using principles of chemistry and physics and taking inspiration from other fields to develop better materials.
“Our team is leveraging molecular simulations to select the monomers needed to make new polymer membranes,” Galizia said. “These new membranes would use 1,000 times less energy to separate mixtures than it would take to distill it.”
If the researchers are successful, this membrane technology has potential applications in many fields, including fossil fuels, healthcare, the airline industry and more.
“There really is a variety of separations that we could run,” Galizia said. “These include carbon dioxide separation from natural gas, olefine-paraffin separations, hydrogen separation and recovery, solvents separation and many others. We just need more selective and durable membranes, which is exactly what we want to do in this project.”
This multidisciplinary project not only aligns with the University of Oklahoma’s strategic plan but also provides an opportunity to educate future materials scientists.
“Our job is to educate the next generation workforce and the leaders of the future,” Galizia said. “That’s why we’re doing this.”
Learn more about Galizia’s work with the OU Membrane Lab in the Gallogly College of Engineering.
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About the Study
The project, “Discovering the mechanism by which polymer porous networks reduce physical aging and plasticization while enhancing permeability and selectivity in microporous polymer membranes,” is funded by an expected $700,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Award no. DE-SC0024554. The project began on Sept. 1, 2023, and is expected to conclude on Aug. 31, 2026.
About the University of Oklahoma
Founded in 1890, the University of Oklahoma is a public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. As the state’s flagship university, OU serves the educational, cultural, economic and health care needs of the state, region and nation. OU was named the state’s highest-ranking university in U.S. News & World Report’s most recent Best Colleges list. For more information about the university, visit www.ou.edu.