Invited Talk: Adsorption Technology for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Applications

Chemical separation plays a vital role in the societal development, accounting for 15% annual total energy consumption globally. Typical examples are natural gas processing, oil refinery, and environmental remediation, all of which play important roles in building a sustainable society. An efficient alternative technology to conventional distillation would bring huge benefits though reducing energy use, emissions, and pollution. The gas industry is a 500-billion-dollar input to nearly every sector of the global economy, with high-density storage for transportation and delivery being the most technologically challenging bottleneck. Typical gas storage applications include fuel gases (e.g., methane and hydrogen) for automobiles, natural gas for long-distance transportation, therapeutic medical gases (e.g., oxygen and nitric oxide) for clinical applications, instrument gases (e.g., nitrogen and argon) for industry usage, and electronic gases (e.g., arsine and phosphine) delivery in the semiconductor fabrication processes. Adsorption technology using porous materials can offer highly efficient routes for gas separation and storage applications. In this talk, I will introduce the basics of adsorption technology and present our latest accomplishment, especially the concept of active sieving technology, which enables highly efficient and economical molecular separation and storage not possible before.