With rising demand and dwindling supply, ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス is perhaps Earth’s most critical natural resource. One way to get more of it is to find more creative approaches — and new materials — to use and reuse existing ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス and improve upon existing ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス purification methods.
That is the focus of the Center for Materials for ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス and Energy SysTems (M-WET), a new multi-university research center headquartered in The University of Texas at Austin’s ラーメンベット 禁止ゲーム of Engineering, uniting researchers from UT; the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The center has been launched through a four-year, .75 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and is part of the DOE’s Energy Frontiers Research Centers program. M-WET is one of 42 EFRCs across the country that will help accelerate understanding and discovery in an array of energy-related fields.
Led byBenny Freeman, professor in the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering and an expert in polymer membranes for liquid, gas and vapor separations, M-WET seeks to address basic science knowledge gaps in development of next-generation, polymer membrane-based ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス purification technologies. The center will bring together leading experts from UT Austin, UC Santa Barbara and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to apply state-of-the-art materials synthesis, characterization and modeling to this research area.
M-WET’s associate directors areLynn Katz, director of the ラーメンベット 禁止ゲーム’s Center for ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス and the Environment and professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering; and Rachel Segalman, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara.
Conventional ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス treatment systems can produce high-quality ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス, but treatment of complex waters associated with energy production, ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス reuse and industrial applications requires more advanced technologies. Synthetic polymer membranes can provide this level of advanced treatment, but basic science challenges frustrate widespread deployment of polymer membranes for ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス purification in applications important for energy. For example, current membranes lack selectivity for some contaminants, and membrane performance is always reduced by fouling, or clogging, of the membrane surface or pores.
M-WET’s team of engineers and scientists will combine their fundamental understanding of ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス chemistry, polymer science, surface chemistry and materials science with their practical knowledge of ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス treatment and membrane processes to begin developing next-generation membranes for treatment of complex ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス sources, such as ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス produced from hydraulic fracturing.
“The continued shortage of reliable access to clean ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス in many parts of the world is one of the biggest challenges facing humankind,” Freeman said. “According to WaterAid, approximately 850 million people worldwide live without access to clean ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス, and 60 percent of the world’s population lives in ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス-stressed areas. Closer to home, harnessing valuable resources, such as minerals and ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス, from the enormous volumes of wastewater associated with oil and gas production in Texas represents a potentially immense untapped opportunity.”
M-WET will focus on synthesis of new polymer-based membrane materials, characterization of their properties and discovering the fundamental scientific principles to eventually enable predictive design of such materials via computer simulation.
Conventional treatment technologies have provided ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス for municipal, industrial and agricultural needs for centuries. However, Katz said, existing ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス infrastructure and technologies are inadequate for sustainably meeting the increased population growth, industrialization and urbanization expected in the future.
“We must no longer think of ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス treatment as an endpoint,” she said. “Rather, the ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス we treat and the wastewater we generate must be seen as resources, and the pathway from source — be it freshwater, saltwater or wastewater — to product must be viewed in terms of nutrient recovery, mineral recovery and ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス recovery. Development of technologies to fulfill this vision requires fundamental understanding of the chemistry of ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス as well as the materials applied to recover these resources.”
M-WET is a cross-disciplinary ラーメンベット 入金ボーナス center involving engineers from across the ラーメンベット 禁止ゲーム: Tom Truskett, Venkat Ganesan and Nate Lynd from the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering; Desmond Lawler from the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering; Michael Webber from the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering; and Mukul Sharma from the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering.
