Date of Graduation

5-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Chemical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Hestekin, Jamie

Committee Member/Reader

Clausen, Ed

Committee Member/Second Reader

Hestekin, Jamie

Abstract

Polyaniline coated cellulose membranes show impressive conductive properties that may be used to innovate traditional charged separation techniques, such as electrodeionization. However, these membranes are not sold to consumers, so they cannot be easily integrated into such systems. This research focuses on the scale-up and development of positively charged anion exchange membranes to be used in EDI cells. Novel cellulose membranes were made using lab-specific cellulose. These membranes were then coated using a polyaniline technique adopted from a paper titled, “Flexible Electrically Conductive Nanocomposite Membrane Based on Bacterial Cellulose and Polyaniline." This paper details the methods used to add the polyaniline coating to lab-scale cellulose membranes. Fourier transfer infrared spectrometry (FTIR) was used to determine that the chemical composition of the material was altered. The carboxyl functional groups were most likely altered to imine groups judging by the shifted FTIR peaks. The theoretical chemical analysis performed before the experiment supports this conclusion. More work needs to be done to compile important data on the novel material, but the proof of concept has been shown within this research.

Keywords

Membrane, Polyaniline, Cellulose, FTIR

Download

Share

COinS