Description:
Relevant projects could involve any separation technology that enables and/or enhances the efficiency of separations in existing or new process technologies in any industrial application. Proposals may focus on facilitating particularly challenging separations resulting in economically significant improvements in selectivity, throughput, energy efficiency, capital/operating costs, and environmental impact. Application areas include (but are not limited to) air separations; separations for multi-component streams; multiphase streams; separation technologies in both inorganic and organic chemical applications; novel purification processes; materials that permit effective separations; recycle and recovery of higher value materials from material waste; separations of toxics from waste; recycle and recovery of critical and strategic materials and metals; and plastics separation for recycle and reuse. Novel separation techniques as disruptive improvements to current established separation technologies are encouraged, including (but not limited to) organic/inorganic membranes materials, novel materials, and biologically mediated separations. Applications of the proposed technologies could belong in any industrial sector, including (but not limited to) drinking water and wastewater treatment; food, medical, pharmaceutical, chemicals, metals/mining, natural resource extraction, materials processing, waste recycling, and biochemical/biotechnological processes.
