CBE Seminar - Li-Chiang Lin

Li-Chiang Lin

Assistant Professor
Department of Process and Energy
Delft University of Technology

The Netherlands

Computational Study of Porous Materials for Energy-Related Applications

Abstract

Reducing CO₂ emissions and energy consumption in many energy-related processes (e.g., power generation, gas separations, and desalination) is currently one of the most prominent challenges in modern society. Recently, porous materials such as zeolites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and graphene-based materials have become of great interest to the scientific community for their potential as adsorbents and/or membranes in these applications. Can we operate these processes with better energy efficiencies and at lower costs? To achieve this, discovering new materials is essential. Computational studies can play an important role in the identification of promising materials from a large materials space, accelerating the development of new materials.

In this presentation, I will talk about several large-scale computational screening studies using state-of-the-art molecular simulation techniques to investigate a large number of possible material candidates for energy-related applications with a focus on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). These studies identified promising materials and provided insights regarding the optimal structures. Some studies also pointed to systems with special chemistry, for which the conventional force fields used in molecular simulations were unable to make sufficiently reliable predictions of gaseous adsorption and transport properties. A methodology was recently developed to generate accurate force fields based upon the reference energies obtained from high-level quantum chemical calculations, providing a powerful approach to make accurate property predictions even for those materials that have not yet been synthesized. In addition, I will also discuss recent studies on understanding the potential of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and 2D covalent-organic frameworks (COFs) as ultrathin-film reverse osmosis (RO) membranes in water desalination to produce fresh water with reduced energy consumption and at lower costs.

Bio

Dr. Li-Chiang Lin was born in 1983 in Taiwan. He received his B.S. and M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University (Taiwan). In 2014, he completed the Ph.D. study in Chemical Engineering from the Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley (2010-2014). After graduation, he worked at the Massachusetts Institutes of Technology as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2015, he joined the Dept. of Process and Energy at the Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) as an assistant professor.

His research interests lie in the energy field with a focus on the computational materials discovery for energy-related applications such as gas separations to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. His research makes use of molecular simulation techniques to study porous materials including zeolites, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), graphene-based materials, etc. as adsorbents and/or membranes. The outcome of his research has identified a number of promising materials as well as established important structure-property relationships, providing useful guidelines for the development of new materials.