Institute for Fundamental Research in Separation Science (IFFRISS) A Prospectus September 10, 2015 This overview of the proposed organization, operation, and technical focus of IFFRISS is a work in progress. In the spirit of consensus essential for success, the Founding Members are invited to participate in finalizing the Institute’s structure and initial research projects. i Table of Contents Overview......................................................................................................... 1 State of the art ................................................................................................ 3 Modeling ...................................................................................................... 4 Proposed Initial Research .................................................................................. 6 General approach .......................................................................................... 6 Current list of proposed precompetitive projects ................................................ 7 Project 1: Modeling permeability and dispersion ............................................ 7 Project 2: Analysis of internal capture ........................................................... 7 Project 3: Simulation of internal capture ....................................................... 8 Project 4: Internal transport visualization ..................................................... 8 Project 5: Pore structure measurement ........................................................ 9 Project 6: First surface analysis ................................................................... 9 Project 7: Concentrated sphere crossflow analysis ........................................ 10 Project 8: Visualization of shearing surface transport ................................... 10 Project 9: Analysis of dilute ellipsoids in crossflow ........................................ 10 Project 10: Cross flow performance testing .................................................. 11 Example economic analysis projects .............................................................. 11 Economics 1: Hydraulic fracturing water purification ..................................... 11 Economics 2: Cost optimization of cross flow shear rate ................................ 11 Facilities ........................................................................................................ 13 Structure and Governance ............................................................................... 14 Funding ........................................................................................................ 17 Intellectual property ....................................................................................... 18 References .................................................................................................... 19 Appendix: Faculty Profiles .............................................................................. 22 Mark F. Hurwitz ........................................................................................... 22 Lynden A. Archer ......................................................................................... 23 Georges Belfort ........................................................................................... 25 Lawrence M. Cathles III ............................................................................... 27 Geoffrey W. Coates ...................................................................................... 29 Itai Cohen .................................................................................................. 31 Olivier Desjardins........................................................................................ 32 Menachem Elimelech.................................................................................... 34 Fernando A. Escobedo .................................................................................. 36 i Emmanuel P. Giannelis ................................................................................. 38 Ian M. Griffiths ............................................................................................ 40 Tobias Hanrath ............................................................................................ 42 Donald L. Koch ............................................................................................ 44 Lena F. Kourkoutis ....................................................................................... 45 Christopher K. Ober ..................................................................................... 47 Colin P. Please ............................................................................................ 49 Robert F. Shepherd ...................................................................................... 51 Ulrich B. Wiesner ......................................................................................... 52 Roseanna N. Zia .......................................................................................... 54 ii Overview The Institute for Fundamental Research in Separation Science (IFFRISS) is dedicated to solving problems of crucial importance to the separations industry. In collaboration with Industrial Members, mathematical, computational, and experimental methods will be applied to understand the flow of complex fluids near and through porous media and to design new self-assembled materials enabling new separations processes and improved versions of current processes. These inherently complicated problems are central to filtration, chromatography, coalescence, and other separation and purification processes which are in turn essential for clean air, clean water, biopharmaceutical and integrated circuit production, petrochemical refining, industrial waste remediation and many other socially and industrially important applications. The need for improving separation processes is highlighted by the National Academy of Engineering1 list of 14 “Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century”, two of which are clean water and improved medicines. The goals of IFFRISS are to deliver value to our Industrial Members in the form of: • Predictive and practical product design tools for separation materials, processes, and equipment; • Novel materials for previously unattainable applications; • Continual improvement of Members’ understanding of, and ability to apply, new developments in the separations sciences; and • Newly graduated scientists and engineers educated for careers in separations and related industries. Open, precompetitive, research will be funded by pooled membership fees. It is anticipated this proof of industrial interest will eventually attract additional funding from government and other nonprofit agencies. The cost of each industrial membership is $50,000/year with a minimum three year commitment. Separation problems are complex but generally have not elicited a high level of academic interest. As a result, the technology has evolved relatively slowly and commercial equipment design remains excessively dependent on expensive and time consuming iterative testing. At the same time, problems in oil exploration, energy storage, medicine, and human physiology, for example, have spurred significant academic the study of porous media, complex fluids (e.g. colloidal, macromolecular, and polymer suspensions), and self-assembly methods for nanostructured materials. IFFRISS will apply and extend this research to solve problems for the separation industry. The Institute is housed within the Cornell University Center for Nanomaterials Engineering and Technology (CNET), a new open research laboratory in the College of Engineering. CNET is an 1 http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/challenges.aspx 1 outcome of the large and continuing investment in complex fluid and self-assembled nanomaterials at Cornell and makes it possible for the Institute to conduct world class research supported by a modest investment in students, postdocs, and minor specific instrumentation. The majority of the Institute faculty are in residence at Cornell and have globally recognized expertise in modeling, measurement and visualization of complex fluid flows, and in design, fabrication, and visualization of nanoparticles, and self-assembled materials. IFFRISS has enlisted the support of Applied Mathematics faculty at Oxford University who have a long successful history of solving a broad range of industrial problems. Institute workshops based on their highly successful “Study Group” method will promote close collaboration between faculty and industrial members. In addition, to ensure the Institute remains on the leading edge of membrane technology, the institute has among its faculty two members of the National Academy of Engineering. Professor Georges Belfort at RPI is an internationally recognized expert in biomolecular separations and protein interactions. Professor Menachem Elimelech at Yale is an internationally recognized expert in advanced filtration technologies for potable water treatment. IFFRISS will achieve its goals through well targeted research projects and frequent interaction with Industrial Members. An initial set of mathematical and computational modeling as well as experimental visualization and characterization projects is described in this prospectus to give members a reasonable understanding of the vision for open, precompetitive research. The inaugural projects, from this list or not, will be selected in collaboration