The majority of research literature on chemical separations focuses on a relatively small collection of chemicals. In many ways this is appropriate because of the dramatic economic and environmental impacts of these species. The space of possible chemicals, however is vast; Carl Sagan's famous "billions and billions" is many orders of magnitude too small for chemical space. I will discuss steps towards methods that may eventually allow rapid development of adsorbent-based separations for a diverse range of molecules drawn from a broad chemical space. I will also discuss recent attempts to quantify reproducibility of experimental data in adsorption, a topic that brings up wide-ranging issues in forming connections between basic discovery-oriented science and the practical application of materials in real-world separations.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
David Sholl is the Director of the Transformational Decarbonization Initiative at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. From 2013-2021 David was the School Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. David’s research uses computational materials modeling to accelerate development of new materials for energy-related applications and carbon dioxide mitigation. He has published over 370 papers that have received over 21,000 citations. He has also written a textbook on Density Functional Theory, a novel, Polyphony, and a book for early career researchers, Success and Creativity in Scientific Research. David is on the Board of Directors of AIChE and in 2020 chaired the inaugural Gordon Research Conference on Chemical Separations.