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research

According to the UN, approximately half of people on Earth experience severe water scarcity during some part of the year. In the coming decades, water scarcity and quality challenges are only expected to be exacerbated by climate change. Advanced separation processes are critical to build a sustainable, circular water economy that meets these challenges. In our group, we work to develop fundamental understanding of the relationships between materials synthesis, material properties, and separation performance - and leverage this understanding to design processes for a secure, sustainable water supply, for resource recovery from waste streams, and for removal and remediation of emerging contaminants. 

membrane contactor processes

Membrane contactor processes can enable highly selective removal or recovery of water and other constituents from mixed streams, via phase separation. Material design is critical to achieve high performance. In our work, we elucidate relationships between material properties and performance at environmental conditions to design robust membranes and processes that can be used to extract water and other valuable products from challenging waste streams. 

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separation materials

Advanced materials can enable more efficient and selective separations and remediation of challenging contaminants. We work to understand how fabrication methods impact material properties that determine performance, while considering commercial scalability and performance at environmental conditions -- factors that are sometimes overlooked for novel materials. We integrate material design with performance characterization to develop separation processes for water treatment, resource recovery, and environmental remediation applications. 

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