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New Membrane Strips Carbon Dioxide from Natural Gas Faster and Better

A modified plastic material greatly improves the ability to separate global warming-linked carbon dioxide from natural gas as the gas is prepared for use, according to engineers at The University of Texas at Austin who have analyzed the new plastic’s performance.

Like a sponge that only soaks up certain chemicals, the new plastic permits carbon dioxide or other small molecules to go through hour-glass shaped pores within it, while impeding natural gas (methane) movement through these same pores. The thermally rearranged (TR) plastic works four times better than conventional membranes at separating out carbon dioxide through pores. [Read more…] about Dr. Ho Bum Park, a Post-doc, publishes a Science paper

Alyson Sagle is awarded the Ford Travel Grant for the 2007 Boston ACS meeting. Ford Travel Grants are presented by the Polymer Material Science and Engineering division of the American Chemical Society. Four awards are made yearly, two at each of the National ACS Meetings.

Chemical Engineering doctoral student recognized by AIChE

Roy Raharjo, a chemical engineering doctoral student, received the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Separations Division Graduate Student Award, which annually recognizes six outstanding graduate students from around the country. A student of Dr. Benny Freeman, the Kenneth A Kobe Professor in Chemical Engineering, Raharjo was awarded for his research in the competitive effects of vapor / gas permeation in solubility selective polymers. Raharjo is the third student from Freeman’s research group to receive the award.

Yuan-Hsuan Wu won a poster competition award at the North America Membrane Society Annual Meeting 2007 in Orlando, Florida. She also was a recipient of a North America Membrane Society Travel Award to this conference. Our congratulations go out to Yuan-Hsuan.

On March 28, 2007, Professor Freeman (center) accepted the University CO-OP’s Hamilton Award for the Best Research Paper published by a UT Faculty member in 2006. This honor, given to only one UT faculty member per year, was in recognition of the paper published by Dr. Freeman’s group in Science: Lin, H., E. van Wagner, B.D. Freeman, L.G. Toy, and R.P. Gupta, “Plasticization-Enhanced H2 Purification Using Polymeric Membranes,” Science, 311(5761), 639-642 (2006).

Press Release mentioning some of our work on RO membranes for salt removal from water.
September 13, 2006
American Association for the Advancement of Science

Fuel cell membrane materials offer a solution for removing salt from water

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