Prakshita Agrawal

Education:

M.Tech. (Chemical Engineering), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

B. Tech. (Chemical Engineering), National Institute of Technology Jaipur, India (2017)

Thesis Research Topic: Hollow fiber mass exchanger

Research Summary:

Hollow fiber membranes (HFMs) are a class of artificial membranes containing many properties like semipermeable, chemically inert, mechanical strength, thermally stable and high surface area to volume ratio and are being used in various applications such as water treatment, desalination, cell culture, medicine, and tissue engineering. Relative to flat-sheet membranes, hollow fibers possess unique advantages including high membrane area, self-supporting structure, and ease of handling. However, they must be assembled as large modules for industrial applications. My work will be to design and develop an HFM module/bioreactor facility using the phase-inversion technique is the most widely used technique for fabricating polymeric membranes that solidifies the polymer into a membrane. Therefore, study on developing a centrifugal machine-based potting machine to develop inbuilt HFM module/bioreactor. Consequently, the properties of HFM depending on their pore diameter are characterized using SEM or TEM to yield a qualitative perspective of pore size.

Key Words: hollow fiber membranes; phase inversion; centrifugal potting; Module design; isothermal spinning; water treatment; Scanning electron microscopy