Colloquium Series: Daniel J. Miller, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Join us in Toy Lounge for our Colloquium Series. Daniel J. Miller from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will be joining us to present “Overcoming Separations Challenges by Addressing System Complexity.”

Biography:

Daniel J. Miller is a Staff Scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. Dan pursued a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin, TX under the supervision of Drs. Benny Freeman and Don Paul, where he was awarded a prestigious National Science
Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. His graduate studies focused on understanding the fundamental physical and chemical phenomena governing organic fouling of microporous water purification membranes, including the development of surface modification strategies to improve membrane efficiency. Following graduation, he accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dan was appointed a Staff Scientist in the LBNL Chemical Sciences Division in 2015, and his primary research interests are in understanding structure-property relationships in polymeric materials for membrane separations

Research Synopsis: Polymeric membranes are employed in a variety of gas separation, water purification, and clean energy applications. Due in part to the largely Edisonian development of membranes for particular applications, substantial opportunity exists to understand how chemical and structural membrane properties influence the fundamental intermolecular interactions and energy exchanges that ultimately govern separation performance. This seminar will discuss the implications of system complexity on membrane transport measurements for clean energy and water treatment applications. Recent work to develop membranes for photoelectrochemical carbon dioxide reduction has focused on controlling organic and electrolyte ion transport, including emergent effects that are only observed in multicomponent experiments. Systematic polymer synthesis has been used to elucidate structure/function relationships that are critical for this emerging application, and experimental membranes have been incorporated in membrane/electrode assemblies to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Efforts to understand and control membrane fouling phenomena in water treatment will also be discussed. Geochemistry models that have previously been used to describe brine flows in subsurface media have been retooled to develop predictive capabilities for inorganic scale formation in spiral-wound RO modules. Finally, non-linear optical techniques have been used to quantify the adsorption of organic solutes to polymer/solution interfaces to gain insight into the poor rejection of RO membranes to many organic micropollutants.

To register, please contact Melissa Gammon at mkgammon@email.UNC.edu.