CAREER: 3D Architecture for High-Performance Thermally-Controlled Gas Sorption

Applications such as air purification, carbon capture, molecular sensing, gas separations, and catalysis often use porous materials capable of gas sorption. Temperature is a crucial factor governing the gas adsorption (i.e., gas uptake) and desorption (i.e., gas release) processes, so precise thermal control of the adsorbent material can significantly improve sorption performance.

However, most porous adsorbent materials are not good thermal conductors, making it challenging to heat them evenly and quickly to a specific temperature. To address this limitation, this project will incorporate porous gas adsorbing materials inside high thermal conductivity, three-dimensional (3D) micro-structured substrates such as silicon. This arrangement can provide reliable thermal control by leveraging the excellent thermal properties of the substrate and the high surface interaction area with the adsorbent material to facilitate heat distribution.

This approach will lead to significant improvements in the design of components and devices that use gaseous adsorbents. Moreover, it will advance the current state-of-the-art technologies for gas sensing, gas storage, and separating complex gaseous mixtures. The project outcomes have the potential to address some of society's biggest challenges today, such as climate change.

Integrating this research with educational activities will provide high-quality training opportunities for students and engineering professionals, enabling them to tackle real-world interdisciplinary engineering problems collaboratively.

The goal of this research is to develop 3D architectures in which a porous gas adsorbent material is embedded inside a macro-structured substrate of high thermal conductivity. This arrangement is expected to significantly improve thermal control and, thus, control gas sorption performance. The research objectives include developing methodologies for the incorporation and characterization of adsorbent materials inside high-thermal conductivity substrates, which will advance our understanding of the relationships between the adsorbents’ properties and their interfacial interactions with the substrate.

The effects of the amount and the distribution of the adsorbent inside the macro-structure and the micron-sized features of the substrate on the thermal behavior and sorption will be determined. Finally, the applicability of the developed 3D architectures will be demonstrated for gas sensing, gas storage, and separations. The educational objectives are aimed at engineering industry professionals and graduate and undergraduate students.

Activities will include the development of courses and educational resources on sorption and the design of sorbent devices and their applications. The activities will facilitate faculty and student interactions with industry via an industrial advisory board and training and professional development activities

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.