学术讲座：Advancing Separation Technologies for Addressing Water-Energy-Environment Challenges
主讲人：Xi Chen, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University
时间：9:00 - 10:30, April 21, 2023 (Beijing Time)
地点：Room 454, JI Long Bin Building
讲座摘要：
Separations play key roles in addressing water-energy challenges, including decarbonizing chemical manufacturing, providing sustainable clean water supplies, and managing on-site and centralized energy storage and water treatment. Thermally-driven separations are widespread, and lower-impact methods such as membranes, adsorption, and solvent extraction are increasingly explored. Currently separation technologies for water-energy applications are constrained by incomplete understanding of transport mechanisms, inability of conventional processes in utilizing non-traditional water-energy sources, and lack of appreciation of the tradeoffs between water and energy consumption in industrial-scale separations. With a research focus on membrane technology, I advance separation technologies for water-energy challenges with a holistic strategy: mechanistic understanding of the separation materials, fundamentals-informed materials design, process innovation to unlock non-traditional water-energy sources, and evaluations of industrial-scale separation operations.
In this talk, I will first present studies that elucidate an intrinsic transport phenomenon of reverse osmosis membranes used in water treatment: permeability–selectivity tradeoff relationship. My findings show how solute and membrane properties influence the permeability–selectivity tradeoff, and provide a framework to predict membrane performance. Second, I will present life-cycle analyses of water–energy impacts of industrial-scale lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling, and development of membrane materials for high-purity lithium extraction. My work identifies that separation technologies play a critical role in reducing the environmental impacts of LIB recycling, and I employ the knowledge from my mechanistic studies to design membrane materials for selective extraction of lithium element from magnesium and sodium. My past work lays foundations for engineering separation technologies from molecular to industrial levels, and guides my future research directions on developing high-precision separation technologies that can discriminate single-species solute for sustainable energy storage, water treatment, and resource recovery.
主讲人简介
Dr. Xi Chen is currently a postdoctoral fellow in The Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, working with Prof. William A. Tarpeh. He received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Columbia University in 2020, under Prof. Ngai Yin Yip. Dr. Chen focuses his research on advancing separation technologies for addressing global water-energy-environment challenges. His past studies include novel contributions toward 1) evaluating and developing technologies for recycling lithium-ion batteries, 2) management and treatment of high-salinity brines for clean water production, 3) energy conversion of low-temperature heat resources, and 4) advancing fundamental transport theory for polymer membranes. Dr. Chen holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and received his B.S. in Environmental Science from Nankai University in China.
