Advanced Separations
Separation of undesirable species from streams is a critical step in nearly every process. Whether it is waste removal in a wastewater plant, carbon capture in a power plant, or product purification in any traditional chemical synthesis process the separation step is important when considering the overall sustainability of the process. The end goal of these technologies is to achieve more sustainable processes while still maintaining effective purification of waste or product streams. Some of these include evaluating engineering chars for contaminant adsorption from wastewater and using novel solvents (Deep Eutectic Solvents) for sustainable carbon capture from either air or flue gas. Several different basic separation processes are explored with these technologies; such as solid:liquid adsorption, liquid:liquid extraction, and gas:liquid absorption and purification.
Having an effective separation process is only an early step in the overall research though. After experimental evaluation process models and technoeconomic analyses are completed to compare the novel separation technologies to the standard technologies currently used in industry. This allows for a direct comparison and for us to make recommendations for future studies on either the separation step examined or on similar technologies.