2018 News Archive

Kevin Chang and Hongxi Luo published research on the Water content, relative permittivity, and ion sorption properties of polymers for membrane desalination in the Journal of Membrane Science.

Prof. Geise was invited to be a water systems delegate at the 6th Arab-American Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Symposium. Organized by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS), the meeting was held in Kuwait City, Kuwait. Prof. Geise presented a poster to highlight the group's desalination and water purification membrane research.

Yuan presented her research on Ion Specific Effects in Charged Polymers for Membrane Applications, and Kevin presented his research on the Influence of Polymer Backbone Rigidity on the Water and Ion Transport Properties of Low Water Content Membrane Polymers. Special thanks to the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Volkswagen Group of North America Fellowship for supporting Yuan and Kevin's travel to the meeting!

Third-year graduate student, Saringi Agata, won the technical presentation competition at the National GEM Consortium Annual Board Meeting and Conference for a presentation on her research into charged polymers for electric field-driven desalination processes. Congratulations Saringi!

Prof. Geise presented a poster, titled Relative permittivity properties of hydrated polymers for desalination membrane applications, highlighting the research efforts of graduate students Kevin Chang and Hongxi Luo at the 10th Conference on Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy and its Applications.

Prof. Geise served as a discussion leader along with Prof. Miao Yu (RPI) for the Membranes, Mesoscale Devices with Controlled Nanostructures session at the 2018 Membranes: Materials and Processes Gordon Research Conference. The session featured invited talks from Prof. Chinedum Osuji (UPenn), Prof. Ivo Vankelecom (KU Leuven), and Prof. Orlando Coronell (UNC Chapel Hill).

Prof. Geise delivered an invited lecture titled Structure/property relationships in polymers for membrane applications at DOW Water & Process Solutions in Edina, MN.

Prof. Geise was awarded a $25,000 grant by the University of Virginia Committee on Sustainability to support research on Membranes to Enable Long Duration Grid-Scale Storage of Renewable Energy in collaboration with Prof. Gary Koenig (ChE @ UVA).

Congratulations to graduate student, Kevin Chang, for winning a UVA Engineering Volkswagen Group of North America Fellowship. The fellowship will support Kevin's research on characterizing materials that are candidates for desalination membranes using a microwave dielectric spectroscopy technique to provide insight into molecular interactions within polymers.

Congratulations to graduate student Yuanyuan Ji for successfully completing her Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal on selective membranes for ion sepecific separations!

UVA ChE Professors Geise and Giri, along with Dr. Helge Heinrich (UVA Materials Science) were awarded a Research Innovation Award from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at UVA. The joint award will support multidisciplinary research on advanced desalination and ion transport membranes.

Graduate student, Saringi Agata, gave a poster presentation at the 2018 National Graduate Research Polymer Conference (sponsored by the ACS Polymer Chemistry Division). Saringi also was awarded a travel grant to attend the meeting. She presented her research on Synthesis of Sulfonated Polyamide-based Thin Film Composite (PA-TFC) Membranes Using Sulfanilic Acid Sodium Salt (SSD) and 1,3-phenylenediamine-4-sulfonic Acid (MPDSA) via Interfacial Polymerization (IP) for Use in Desalination Processes.

Yuanyuan Ji and Hongxi Luo published research on Specific co-ion sorption and diffusion properties influence membrane permselectivity in the Journal of Membrane Science.

Prof. Geise was selected to receive the 2018 Robert A. Moore, Jr. Award in Chemical Engineering. This UVA ChE Department award was established in 2007 by Bob Moore (Halsey Professor, 1997) to recognize a UVA chemical engineering faculty member whose teaching, research, and outreach activities during the previous twelve-month period best represent the interests of industry and best prepare students for industrial careers.

Undergraduate researcher and Rodman Scholar, Cydnie Golson, will lead a team of UVA Rodman Scholars as they carry out a research project funded by a UVA Sustainability Research Development Grant. The award will support research on sustainable window coatings to reduce light pollution on Grounds.

Prof. Geise landed a 4-VA Collaborative Research Grant to support a joint research effort with Prof. Lou Madsen and his group at Virginia Tech. The grant will fund research focused on controlling molecular configuration and diffusion in polymeric membranes for water purification and energy applications. The team will leverage Geise lab expertise in the study of small molecule transport in charged polymer membranes and Madsen lab expertise in NMR diffusometry to engineer advanced membrane materials for membrane-based water purification and energy applications.

Graduate student, Yuan Ji, gave a poster presentation as a finalist in the 14th Annual University of Virginia Engineering Research Symposium (UVERS), hosted by the Graduate Engineering Student Council. Her poster was titled, Specific co-ion sorption and diffusion properties influence membrane permselectivity.

Prof. Geise gave an invited lecture, titled Ion specific effects in charged polymers for membrane applications, which highlighted Yuanyuan Ji's Ph.D. thesis research in collaboration with Hongxi Luo. The talk was given as part of the joint PMSE-NAMS Joint Symposium on Surface Science of Membranes for Advanced Separations at the 255th ACS National Meeting. Prof. Geise also chaired a session of the symposium. Thesis research from Tianyi Xue and Kevin Chang was also presented during the Water Purification for a Sustainable Future session co-organized by Prof. Geise and Dr. Shannon Mahurin (Oak Ridge National Lab) and the Structure & Dynamics of Materials via NMR Spectroscopy session.

Kevin Chang and Tianyi Xue published research on Increasing salt size selectivity in low water content polymers via polymer backbone dynamics in the Journal of Membrane Science.

In collaboration with Prof. Ruilan Guo and Joseph Aboki at the University of Notre Dame, Hongxi Luo and Yuan Ji published research on Water and salt transport properties of triptycene-containing sulfonated polysulfone materials for desalination membrane applications in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Congratulations to first-year undergraduate researcher Cydnie Golson for being selected to be a Rodman Scholar! The UVA Rodman Scholars Program is the honors program for UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science.