Abstract Proposal No. 9714574 Proposal Type SGER Principal Investigator Charles R. Martin Affiliation Colorado State University This grant is awarded through the Separations and Purification Program sub-element of the Interfacial, Transport and Separations Program of the Chemical and Transport Systems Division. The principal investigator is Dr. Charles Martin at Colorado State University. The objective of the research is to develop molecular-recognition membranes that are highly selective. The concept is to introduce apoenzymes (enzymes without cofactors) into a membrane. The apoenzyme binds to specific substrates and thereby increases the flux of the substrate species compared to other species present in the system. The PI proposes to use this molecular recognition concept to focus on enantiomeric separations, using both apoenzymes and synthetic molecular recognition species. This proposal to develop enantioselective membranes ha a high exploratory content. The research proposed here has a potentially tremendous impact in the separation of chiral species. The concepts of molecular recognition and selective separations form emerging research areas in separations science and technology. If successful, the research will have a significant impact on pharamaceuticals purification and production scale-up.
