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3D printed filtration and separation devices with integrated membranes and no post-printing assembly

3D printed filtration and separation devices with integrated membranes and no post-printing assembly
3D printed filtration and separation devices with integrated membranes and no post-printing assembly
Additive manufacturing, or three-dimensional (3D) printing, is an accessible, quick, and user-friendly tool for fabricating reactors and chemical processing devices. Here we report a method for printing filtration and separation devices using fused-deposition modelling (FDM) which incorporate commercial porous membranes. By using exogenous membranes, membrane pore size and material can be arbitrarily specified allowing much greater versatility in device design. We show for the first time that fully operational monolithic devices can be created without need for post-printing assembly and demonstrate the efficacy of the approach by making and testing three distinct devices: dead-end filters, which can be made in a range of sizes and are shown to fully remove micron-sized particles from a heterogenous mixture; liquid–liquid separators, which are shown to completely separate segmented flows of immiscible liquids; and a cross-flow filtration device, which is shown to achieve near full dye removal from an aqueous stream with a residence time of 3.4 minutes. For the cross-flow filtration device we describe a new “double-sided” printing technique whereby the plastic is directly printed onto both sides of the membrane to ensure the membrane is fully bonded to the 3D printed body. The range of devices showcased here highlights the versatility of the approach and its potential for use in chemical processing applications that require porous membranes.
2058-9883
Clark, Molly J.
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Garg, Tushar
205689ac-346d-4d5b-83fa-3146d34db07b
Rankin, Kathryn E.
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Bradshaw, Darren
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Nightingale, Adrian M.
4b51311d-c6c3-40d5-a13f-ab8917031ab3
Clark, Molly J.
f8dc735f-3442-45a2-a989-fcea4c6ac755
Garg, Tushar
205689ac-346d-4d5b-83fa-3146d34db07b
Rankin, Kathryn E.
d9516566-0ad8-473d-b99b-4683c663a2b7
Bradshaw, Darren
7677b11e-1961-447e-b9ba-4847a74bd4dd
Nightingale, Adrian M.
4b51311d-c6c3-40d5-a13f-ab8917031ab3

Clark, Molly J., Garg, Tushar, Rankin, Kathryn E., Bradshaw, Darren and Nightingale, Adrian M. (2023) 3D printed filtration and separation devices with integrated membranes and no post-printing assembly. Reaction Chemistry & Engineering. (doi:10.1039/D3RE00245D).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Additive manufacturing, or three-dimensional (3D) printing, is an accessible, quick, and user-friendly tool for fabricating reactors and chemical processing devices. Here we report a method for printing filtration and separation devices using fused-deposition modelling (FDM) which incorporate commercial porous membranes. By using exogenous membranes, membrane pore size and material can be arbitrarily specified allowing much greater versatility in device design. We show for the first time that fully operational monolithic devices can be created without need for post-printing assembly and demonstrate the efficacy of the approach by making and testing three distinct devices: dead-end filters, which can be made in a range of sizes and are shown to fully remove micron-sized particles from a heterogenous mixture; liquid–liquid separators, which are shown to completely separate segmented flows of immiscible liquids; and a cross-flow filtration device, which is shown to achieve near full dye removal from an aqueous stream with a residence time of 3.4 minutes. For the cross-flow filtration device we describe a new “double-sided” printing technique whereby the plastic is directly printed onto both sides of the membrane to ensure the membrane is fully bonded to the 3D printed body. The range of devices showcased here highlights the versatility of the approach and its potential for use in chemical processing applications that require porous membranes.

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Submitted date: 24 April 2023
Accepted/In Press date: 27 September 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 6 October 2023
Additional Information: Funding Information: AMN is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council via an Industrial Innovation Fellowship (NE/R013578/1) and the Signals in the Soil program (NE/T010584/1). MJC's PhD research is supported by the University of Southampton's Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences via the Centre of Excellence for Continuous Digital Chemical Engineering Science. CT scanning was supported by the National Research Facility for Lab X-ray CT (NXCT) at the μ-VIS X-ray Imaging Centre, University of Southampton, through EPSRC grant EP/T02593X/1. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 484668
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/484668
ISSN: 2058-9883
PURE UUID: 393805a4-b2a1-46d7-84e2-f72e9f608bce
ORCID for Kathryn E. Rankin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8458-1038
ORCID for Darren Bradshaw: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5258-6224
ORCID for Adrian M. Nightingale: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2445-4827

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 Nov 2023 17:36
Last modified: 28 Aug 2024 01:47

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Contributors

Author: Molly J. Clark
Author: Tushar Garg
Author: Kathryn E. Rankin ORCID iD
Author: Darren Bradshaw ORCID iD

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