Webinar: Elastomers for Selective Gas Separation, including Carbon Capture

Webinar Overview: This webinar is designed for researchers and technologists in both the rubber and membrane industries, since the use of various types of elastomeric membranes to permit selective permeation of gases will be presented. Of particular interest here will be the use of such elastomeric membranes to selectively remove CO2 (carbon capture) from various industrial waste streams, as well as from confined environments and biomedical devices. This webinar will touch on some of the following topics:
• Introduction to selective gas removal and carbon capture and storage (CCS)
• Classifications and physico-chemical mechanisms of gas-separation membranes
• Performance metrics of selective gas separation and the Robeson trade-off
• Chemically-crosslinked elastomers for selective gas separation
• Physically-crosslinked elastomers for selective gas separation
• Promising approaches toward selective CO2 removal from mixed gases
• Challenges of gas-separation membrane technological advances
• Breakthrough strategies involving elastomers for selective CO2 removal
• Learning Objectives:
• Identify gases that are of primary interest for separation and the reason why
• Apply physical and chemical principles to elucidate the mechanisms of molecular transport
• Classify gas-separation membranes on the basis of their operational mechanism
• Determine the comparative performance of gas-separation membranes
• Design chemically- and physically-crosslinked elastomers for gas separation
• Examine the technological challenges associated with designer gas-separation membranes
• Develop high-performance elastomer membranes that are inexpensive, scalable and effective

Price: Free for Members / $99 Non-member

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Instructor: Richard J. Spontak, North Carolina State University
Bio: Dr. Richard J. Spontak is a Distinguished Professor and Alumni Distinguished Graduate and Undergraduate Professor in the Departments of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering (with honors/high distinction) from the Pennsylvania State University in 1983 and was later awarded the Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. He then pursued post-doctoral research in Materials Science & Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) and Condensed Matter Physics at the Institute for Energy Technology (Norway) before joining the Corporate Research Division of the Procter & Gamble Company in 1990. In 1992, he accepted a faculty position at North Carolina State University, where he supervises the Macromolecular Materials & Morphology Group. Since that time, Spontak has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers and over 30 scholarly works as book chapters and invited monographs, and his work has been featured on 31 journal covers and cited over 14,000 times according to Google Scholar.
Although active in a diverse range of disciplines, his primary research interests relate to the phase behavior and morphology/property development of nanostructured polymers, polymer nanocomposites and coatings, electron microscopy and stimuli-responsive soft materials. In recognition of his fundamental and applied research endeavors, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards such as the Alcoa Foundation Engineering Achievement and Distinguished Engineering Research Awards, Alexander von Humboldt and Tewkesbury fellowships, the North Carolina State University Alumni Outstanding Research and Global Engagement Awards, the 2006 American Chemical Society (PMSE Division) Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science & Engineering, the 2007 German Society for Electron Microscopy Ernst Ruska Prize, the 2008 American Chemical Society (Rubber Division) Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award, the 2011 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) Colwyn Medal, the 2012 Norwegian University of Science & Technology Lars Onsager Medal, the 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers International Award, the 2021 Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2021 International Association of Advanced Materials Researcher of the Year Award. An elected fellow of the American Physical Society, IOM3 and the Royal Society of Chemistry, he is or has been on the editorial advisory board of more than 20 international journals and holds editorial positions on three of them. He has been recognized as a 2007 Outstanding Scholar Alumnus and a 2012 Alumni Fellow by the Pennsylvania State University, and he is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences and the North Carolina State University Research Leadership, Global Engagement and Outstanding Teaching Academies. Spontak is also a highly acclaimed educator and academic mentor. For his instructional effectiveness employing cooperative and active learning pedagogies in the classroom and his widespread efforts to promote interdisciplinary engineering design and undergraduate research, he has received college- and alumni-level Outstanding Teaching Awards, as well as the university-level Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest institutional honor bestowed by the University of North Carolina system. He has also received the 2006 International Network for Engineering Education & Research Recognition Award and the 2009 American Society for Engineering Education Southeast Region Outstanding Mid-Career Teaching Award, and he has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist and an Erasmus Fellow. He resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife Josie and has two children, Danielle and Joshua.