Alcantar/Cardena-Valencia U of S. Florida/SRI
The collaborative team proposes to develop and investigate the performance of membranes based on natural, sustainable materials to remove organic contaminants from water. The ultimate goal of this project is to create novel membranes based on materials that have the ability to attract water pollutants and are renewable, biodegradable, and can be obtained via sustainable agriculture. A high percentage of the network forming these novel membranes will come from natural sugars and waxes. These compounds will be extracted from cactus mucilage, the gooey part of cacti. The separation process will invoke a similar function that cactus plants use to transport water to survive in arid environments to mimic the separation process of pollutants from water.
The proposed work focuses on the application of fundamental research of sustainable and natural materials capable of removing harmful organic chemicals from water. Although poly dimethyl siloxane (PDMS) membranes are readily-used in organic separations due to their hydrophobic nature and permeability to gases and organics, separation of higher molecular weight organics-semi-VOCs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)-remains challenging due to slow time-constants and selectivity. This project will invoke biomimicry to comparatively evaluate the use of polysaccharides from mucilage to emulate nutrient pathways in cacti. The polysaccharides will be cross-linked in PDMS networks and also in cutin waxes (materials that form the cactus skin). Since cutin waxes are extremely hydrophobic, this work potentially could establish that PDMS membranes will be replaced for more sustainable materials, which will be of high impact in the field.
Students working on this project will be trained to apply creative engineering perspectives to solving chemical and industrial challenges in problems intrinsically related to environmental assessments and water quality. The inclusion of undergraduate students will be achieved via an undergraduate research exchange internship between USF and SRI. In addition, high school students will be exposed to this project; the PIs will develop a new chemical laboratory lesson plan for a local high school in St. Petersburg, Florida.
