Geise, Geoff
Primary Appointment
Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering
Education
- BS, Chemical Engineering, Penn State University
- MSE, Chemical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin
- PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin
Contact Information
PO BOX 400741, 102 Engineer's Way
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Telephone: 434-924-6248
Fax: 434-982-2658
Email: gmg9j@virginia.edu
Website: https://engineering.virginia.edu/geisegroup
Research Disciplines
Chemical Engineering
Research Interests
Macromolecular engineering for separations and clean energy, water purification, membrane design, ion and water transport, polymer science
Research Description
Providing sustainable supplies of purified water and clean energy is a critical global challenge for the future, and as the world population grows, demand for energy and purified water from increasingly contaminated sources continues to increase. Water and energy are inherently linked since clean water often is required to produce energy, and energy is required to purify water. Economical, environmentally-friendly, and low carbon footprint water purification and energy storage/generation solutions are needed, and polymer membranes will play a key role in addressing clear and pressing global needs for water and energy through a wide variety of existing and developing technologies. To address these needs effectively, we must be able to rationally tailor and design polymers at the molecular level and process those polymers to engineer membranes with desired combinations of transport properties. Key to achieving this goal is an improved understanding of fundamental structure/property/processing relationships in polymers for membrane applications.
Our research focuses on experimental studies aimed at solving fundamental and practical problems related to water and ion transport through polymers that could be used as membranes in a variety of water and energy applications, e.g., reverse osmosis (RO), forward osmosis (FO), pressure retarded osmosis (PRO), electrodialysis (ED), membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI), capacitive mixing (CAPMIX), reverse electrodialysis (RED), and aqueous and non-aqueous batteries. We use transport and polymer property measurements as well as spectroscopic tools to gain fundamental insight into the influence of polymer chemistry and architecture, molecular interactions, processing, and morphology on water and ion transport in polymers. We look to connect such fundamental insight to separation and energy system-level performance (often via established models) to direct materials development that will lead to enhanced performance of water purification and energy generation/storage technologies.