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Atomically Precise Membranes:
This subtopic is focused on the advancement of manufacturing processes that are able to produce atomically precise membranes with exceptional selectivity for separations. Atomically precise is defined as: materials, structures, devices, and finished goods produced in a manner such that every atom is at its specified location relative to the other atoms, and in which there are no defects, missing atoms, extra atoms, or incorrect (impurity) atoms. Spiroligomers and engineered proteins are examples of atomically precise structures. Polymers are not; although the individual molecules in a conventional polymer are atomically precise, their relative positions are not atomically precise; therefore, conventional polymers are not considered to be atomically precise.
We seek to promote the development of a new class of strong, thin, and atomically precise membrane materials for separations that provide a 10X permeance improvement over state-of-the-art polymer membranes. They would have thicknesses generally below 10 nm for high permeance, incorporate atomically precise molecular pores for 100% selectivity, be atomically flat to prevent fouling, and heavily cross-linked for environmental stability. These membranes offer the potential to provide game-changing 44 process energy advances. From a strategic perspective, the development of gram-scale and kilogram-scale atomically precise manufacturing processes would bring a new capability to produce materials near their theoretical strength limits—more than an order of magnitude beyond that of current state of the art material production methods.
The application space of special interest includes, but is not restricted to, chemical separations, desalination, and gas separations. Atomically precise membranes that have channels for purposes other than molecular, atomic, or ion transport will also be considered. In desalination, a rate increase of 2-3 orders of magnitude over reverse osmosis is projected for a system with not only controlled pore size but also engineered pore edge composition [1]. In principle, a series of membranes of sufficient selectivity could separate air into its raw components of N2, O2, Ar, CO2, Ne, He, etc. for significant energy savings in a wide range of cryogenic, chemical, and combustion processes [2, 3] and for greenhouse gas reduction.
We seek grant applications to advance scalable technologies that provide order-of-magnitude increments over the performance of current industrial membrane applications. The focus of the proposal must be on methods to produce atomically precise membranes for near 100% selectivity; or in the case of transport that is non-molecular in nature, 2X improvement or better in transport property metric over the comparative state-of-the-art. Consideration must be given to addressing the issues of fouling, stability, scalability, and cost. The choice of membrane material should be appropriate to the target separation or transport in a commercial setting. Target separations with high energy impact are preferred, that result in a minimum of 50% energy savings over competitive state of the art materials. Paper or computation-only studies do not qualify for this subtopic. We require the synthesis and testing of candidate materials. This can include the demonstration of overcoming a key technical barrier to synthesis or scale up. The proposal should include a plan for experimental measurements and supporting calculations to show that costcompetitive energy savings can be achieved with practical economies of scale. The proposal should provide a path to scale up in potential Phase II follow on work.
For more details on this and other DOE SBIRs, visit http://science.energy.gov/~/media/sbir/pdf/TechnicalTopics/FY2017_Phase-1_Release-1_Topics_Combined-07-13-2016.pdf
Questions – contact: David Forrest, david.forrest@hq.doe.gov
