Traditional adsorbents rely on high surface area materials which often lead to diffusion resistance limitations. Our approach involved the creation of open structured materials with various surface functionalities, such as, polyelectrolytes, polypeptides, tetrasulfide organics, etc. These types of novel, adsorptive materials find applications in environmental remediation, affinity-based separations, sensors, etc. The development of adsorptive separation processes with reduced energy consumption and minimal environmental impact is critical for sustainable operation. The questions are: Can we make membranes which can capture toxic metals at high capacity? Can we add functional moiety in pores which can go through conformation changes resulting in tunable sorption and desorption behavior? These are indeed possible if one can integrate life sciences field with synthetic membranes to make tunable and functionalized adsorptive materials. The metal sorption results indicated not only high capacity but also rapid uptake rate. Metal sorption is extremely high (>10 meq/g for Pb) compared to conventional ion exchange (1-3 meq/g).  These materials can also be functionalized to create nanoparticles in membrane pores for catalysis. An example of green synthesis of catalytic materials (Fe, and Fe/Pd) will also be presented.

Responsive membrane materials for toxic metal sorption at high capacity and environmental catalysis

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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