Event
ChBE Seminar: MOF-enabled Membranes: Innovative Approaches Toward Energy-efficient Gas Separarations
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
11:00 a.m.
0408 ANS (Animal Sciences)
Taylor Woehl
tjwoehl@umd.edu
https://chbe.umd.edu/seminar-series
Speaker: Hae-Kwon Jeong, McFerrin Professor, Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University
Title: MOF-enabled Membranes: Innovative Approaches Toward Energy-efficient Gas Separations
Abstract:
Molecular sieving metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer unique opportunities as membrane materials not only for polycrystalline membranes but also for mixed-matrix membranes (MMMs). Zeolitic-imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs), a sub-class of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), are of particular interest in gas separations primarily due to their ultra-micropores (pores smaller than 5 Å) and their unusual thermal/chemical stabilities. Despite their potentials, neither polycrystalline MOF membranes nor MOF-containing MMMs have been commercialized due to both fundamental materials and processing challenges.
In this talk, I would like to discuss completely new approaches to address both materials and processing challenges mentioned above. In the first part, I’ll talk about the current status of polycrystalline MOF membranes and discuss some of our recent work on increasing productivity of MOF membranes for large-scale industrial applications. In the second part, I’ll introduce a couple of new approaches to form MOF-containing MMMs, both flat sheets and hollow fibers. The first MMM module containing several MMM hollow fibers will be discussed.
Bio:
Dr. Hae-Kwon Jeong is the McFerrin Professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. Dr. Jeong also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Dr. Jeong received a B.S. degree and an M.S in chemical engineering from Yonsei University in 1995 and in 1997, respectively. In 2004, he received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota under the direction of Professor Michael Tsapatsis, where he developed novel microporous mixed metal oxides and layered material/polymer membranes for gas separation. While working on his Ph.D. in chemical engineering, he obtained an M.S. in physics from the University of Massachusetts under the supervision of Professor Mark Tuominen. From 2004-2006, he was a postdoctoral research associate with Professors Richard Masel and Mark Shannon at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked on ultrathin mesoporous silica membranes for micro-fuel cells. In 2006, Dr. Jeong began his independent career as an Assistant Professor in Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2012, and was appointed as the Kenneth R. Hall Career Development Professor. He was promoted to a Full Professor in 2019 and appointed as the McFerrin Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2020. His research group focuses on developing nanoporous metal-organic framework materials with tunable molecular sieving properties as well as novel processing technologies to prepare their membranes and composites for gas separation applications. Dr. Jeong has received several awards, including the KIChE US Chapter Outstanding Young Investigator Award in 2009, the KIChE US Chapter James M. Lee Award in 2016, the Texas A&M Dean of Engineering Excellence Award in 2019, and the 2020 AIChE Institute Award for Excellence In Industrial Gases Technology. Dr. Jeong is an associate editor of the Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering and a member of the advisory board of the Journal of Membrane Science Letters.
