Events Calendar

Lyman L. Handy Colloquia: Advances in Membrane and Absorption Processes for Carbon Capture

Speaker: Jennifer Wilcox,

Talk Title: Advances in Membrane and Absorption Processes for Carbon Capture

Series: Lyman L. Handy Colloquia

Abstract: The scale by which CO2 must be mitigated worldwide dwarfs the existing chemical industry, making utilization of CO2 as a chemical feedstock a minor component of the portfolio of mitigation options. Carbon capture and
storage is one strategy that could potentially mitigate gigatons of CO2 emissions per year, provided the storage potential exists. Strategies based upon adsorption and catalytic membrane separation processes will be discussed. In particular, carbon-based micro and mesoporous materials for selective CO2 capture and dense metallic membrane materials for selective N2 separation from CO2 will be of focus.
Modeling and simulation play an important role in the construction of realistic pore structures and also aid in understanding adsorption-desorption mechanisms. Density functional theory calculations have been performed to investigate the electronic properties of graphitic surfaces and charge analyses have been carried out to generate partial charge distributions of graphitic surfaces with surface-embedded functional groups. Grand canonical Monte Carlo is used to simulate the adsorption processes and different potential models for the CO2 molecule are adopted to calculate the interactions between fluid molecules and between fluid molecules and pore walls. The effects of various pore sizes, potential models, temperatures, and surface heterogeneity will be discussed.
In addition to adsorption investigations, metallic membrane materials for selective N2 separation for carbon capture are also under investigation. This work involves the adsorption, dissociation, and sub-surface diffusion of N2 in Group V- based metals, including vanadium, niobium, and their alloys with ruthenium. The electronic structure of the metal can be tuned based upon alloying, thereby enhancing N2 permeability. Experimental N2 flux measurements are underway to test the theoretical predictions and preliminary results will be presented.

Biography: Jennifer Wilcox has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University since 2008. Her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2004 is from the University of Arizona, and her B.A.
in Mathematics in 1998 is from Wellesley College. She received the 2007 ARO Young Investigator Award (Membrane Design for Optimal Hydrogen Separation), the 2006 ACS PRF Young Investigator Award (Heterogeneous Kinetics of Mercury in Combustion Flue Gas), and the 2005 NSF CAREER Award (Arsenic and Selenium Speciation in Combustion Flue Gas). Within her research group, she focuses on trace metal and CO2 capture. Her research involves the coupling of theory to experiment to test newly-designed materials for sorbent or catalytic potential. She is the author of the first textbook on Carbon Capture, recently published in March 2012.

Host: Prof. Tsotsis

More Information: Wilcox Poster.pdf

Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Gerontology Auditorium

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Ryan Choi