Brandon Ashfeld

Research Interests

The success of worldwide efforts to minimize global energy consumption is intimately tied to the development of energy efficient separations. An alternative to many conventional, energy-intensive separations that require a change in state of one component is through the design of thermoresponsive ionic liquids in liquid-liquid separations to reduce the energy consumption of industrial processes while also broadly impacting separation science. Professor Ashfeld's group is focused on the development of task-specific ionic liquids (TSILs) as thermoresponsive fluids for LLS in the development of energy efficient separations. The group has developed a series of ILs exhibiting unusual lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior, the conversion of a homogenous solution to a biphasic mixture as temperature increases, for use in an assortment of critical separations, including desalinations, carbon capture, and in a redesign of absorption compression systems. Although the underlying chemical physics of LCST behavior is poorly understood, the researchers have identified architectural parameters to predict LCST separation and examined the molecular behavior at phase transition using a combination of variable temperature MS and NMR. The primary driving force behind this initiative is the need for new strategies to synthesize architecturally complex molecular architectures that are otherwise laborious or difficult to achieve using conventional strategies. The group's long-term goals are to use these new chemical constructs in the development of new fluidic materials that improve the energy efficiency of industrial separations.