Zhang, Chen
Maryland Energy Innovation Institute
The overarching goal of our research is to decarbonize large-scale separations, which consume roughly half of U.S. industrial energy use. The lab aims to achieve this goal through leveraging material chemistry, transport, and scalable device fabrication to create advanced membranes for sustainable separation processes. More specifically, his research focuses on (1) understanding the control of molecular-scale membrane chemistry and structure to provide tunable transport properties for target fluid separations; (2) translating molecular-scale discoveries to hollow fibers with ultra-thin separation layers suitable for large-scale applications. His research addresses a broad range of challenging separation problems crucial to sustainable production of energy, clean water, bulk chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Current interests include: (1) Membrane separation of hydrocarbon mixtures; (2) Carbon molecular sieve membranes for high-temperature hydrogen separations; (3) Catalytic hollow fiber membrane reactors for decarbonized chemical conversion; (4) Hierarchically porous silica hollow fiber membranes and sorbents for carbon capture.
Education
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Honors and Awards
ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, 2021
NSF CAREER Award, 2021
Minta Martin Award, 2019
CHBE426: Chemical and Biomolecular Separation Processes (Spring)
CHBE494/694: Sustainable Separations and Carbon Capture (Fall)
CHBE440: Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design (Spring 2020-2025)
CHBE437: Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Laboratory (Fall 2018-2022)