SUMMER RESEARCH TRAINING IN MEMBRANE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2008 NSF REU SITE PROGRAM at the UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
The Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering, College of Engineering is pleased to offer this research project as part of the 2008 summer NSF-REU Site Program administered by the Department of Pharmacology & Cell Biophysics.  Students interested in this project are urged to contact Professor Ho to discover more about the project, learn what your responsibilities will be during the ten-week research training program.
Project #:  08 - 009 Faculty Supervisor/Mentor: Chia-Chi Ho, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Chemical & Materials Engineering College of Engineering Email:  chiachi.ho@uc.edu
A Novel Method to Synthesize Ultrafiltration Membranes
General background and significance of the project: A promising approach for manufacturing ultrafiltration membranes with uniform pores relies on the polymerization of self-assembled surfactant nanostructures.  Many research groups have recognized the potential advantages of this approach and have invested significant research efforts towards polymerizing bicontinuous surfactant structures.  However, instead of forming ultrafiltration membranes with nanometer size pores, membranes with micron-size pores much larger than that of the surfactant template are consistently reported following polymerization.  This is due to “breakthrough” of the surfactant templates which typically rearrange on a time scale faster than the polymerization. Our approach towards overcoming this challenge in an economical and practical way is to replace the water in these self-assembled surfactant templates with glassy sugar.  Successful polymerization of these templates would potentially lead to membranes with highly uniform and finely tunable nanometer-size pores whose dimensions are dictated by the quasi-equilibrium thermodynamics of the glassy sugar/surfactant template.  After polymerization, the sugar and surfactant can be readily rinsed off with water and recycled, thereby foregoing the use of toxic solvents prevalent in traditional membrane manufacturing processes.
Brief description of proposed research and activities for the 10-week REU period: The REU student will learn to fabricate and evaluate polymerized sugar and surfactant membranes with highly uniform and finely tunable nanometer-size pores whose dimensions are dictated by the quasi-equilibrium thermodynamics of the glassy sugar/surfactant template
What the REU Student can gain from participating in this project: The REU student will demonstrate and develop the fundamental science for synthesizing ultrafiltration membranes via self-assembled templates and characterize the ultrafiltration membrane formed.  Significant contributions made by the REU student will result in co-authorship on conference presentations and papers, and peer-reviewed articles arising from the research.