Mridusmita Barooah

Title : Effect of functionalized membranes for enhanced separation performance

Abstract:

Functionalized membranes play a crucial role in enhancing separation performance across various industries, from water purification to pharmaceuticals and beyond. Functionalization allows membranes to selectively separate specific molecules or ions based on size, charge, polarity, or other chemical properties. Functionalization can enhance membrane permeability, allowing for increased flux rates. By modifying the membrane surface at a molecular level, functional groups can reduce fouling and enhance the flow of substances through the membrane, thereby improving separation efficiency. Functionalized membranes often exhibit greater chemical stability compared to unmodified membranes. This increased stability can allow for longer operational lifetimes and better performance under harsh conditions, such as high temperatures or extreme pH levels. Functionalization allows for the creation of membranes with enhanced selectivity and efficiency in separating target compounds from complex mixtures. This can lead to higher purity in the separated components and reduced energy consumption in separation processes. Apart from that these membranes can contribute to environmental sustainability by enabling more efficient separation processes, reducing energy consumption, and minimizing the need for chemical additives. This can lead to lower operating costs and reduced environmental impact compared to traditional separation methods. The addition of modifying agents also plays a pivotal role in improving the gas transport performance (CO2 permeability as well as CO2/N2 selectivity). A critical discussion on the fillers used and its consecutive modification has been discussed in detail in this following work. The influence of these material on the overall physicochemical property of the membrane material has been discussed in detail.
This article provides a comprehensive review with respect to the utility of MMMs (constituting a bulk and a filler scattered phase) towards CO2 separation. A thorough analysis was carried out with respect to the filler particles in the MMM and their ability to enhance the CO2/N2 gas transport properties.

Audience Take Away
• This study provides alternate advanced fabrication methods to achieve MMMs with high performance in gas separation.
• Modifying agents have been added to improve the physico-chemical properties of the membrane. As indicated, the size, shape and porosity of the filler particles significantly influence the gas separation characteristics of the MMMs. Characterization studies concluded that the functionalization agents improve the membrane performance.
• The high end separation technology provided opportunity for large-scale gas separation operation and a very viable approach to be replaced with the conventional separation technology in terms of physico-chemical property enhancement and gas separation performance.

Biography:

Dr. Mridusmita Barooah did her graduation in Chemical Engineering from Assam Engineering College, Guwahati, Assam in 2012. Thereafter, she worked as Project Scientist in DST sponsored projects, Government of India from CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology, Jorhat and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. She then joined the research group of Dr. Bishnupada Mandal, Senior Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Guwahati. She was awarded her PhD degree in 2019. Her PhD topic was, “Development of CO₂ selective mixed matrix membrane for CO₂ separation.” She is working in National Institute of Technology (NIT), Arunachal Pradesh as Assistant Professor from July 2019 upto present. She has been teaching core subjects in Chemical Engineering which include Mass Transfer, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Chemical Process Technology, Process Instrumentation, Chemical Engineering lab. She has 4 International publication of research article and attended many International and national conference along with workshops.