NETL research scientist Thien “James” Tran won the Young Membrane Scientist Award, presented by the North American Membrane Society (NAMS), for his contributions in developing new gas separation membrane materials including separations from fossil-based industrial point sources such as electric power production, and steel and cement manufacturing.

Tran is the second NETL scientist to receive the NAMS Young Membrane Scientist Award. Fellow NETL research scientist Lingxiang Zhu was honored with the award in 2023. Tran and Zhu have been instrumental in the development of NETL’s high-performance gas separation membrane mobile test unit, which is undergoing field trials at the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Tran will be presented with the award at the NAMS conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in May.  

“Tran is a highly intelligent researcher who is both a leader and a team player, driven by a relentless pursuit to advance technologies and make projects succeed,” said NETL’s David Hopkinson, who nominated Tran for the award.

“He is eager to engage in a new problem, and consequently others frequently seek him out for advice in a variety of materials science topics. This is undoubtedly also due to his excellent communication skills and ability to engage with scientists of many different backgrounds. Tran’s contributions to membrane module design, material scaleup, and field testing are not only important to the success of NETL’s work, but also to the commercial relevance of membranes for gas separations.”

Tran has been a critical part of an NETL team that is scaling up and pilot testing a promising thin film composite membrane for CO₂ separation from the steel mill blast furnace in Braddock. He worked on the design of a small pilot, plate-and-frame membrane module now undergoing NETL’s field trial at the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson plant.

The unique module consists of stacked plates that house a total of 10 membrane sheets, but the total membrane area can be easily adjusted by removing or adding plates to the stack. Tran optimized a procedure for 3-D printing the module plates, making it possible to easily adjust the design based on guidance from computational fluid dynamics modeling.

This is a first-of-kind demonstration in the United States and an area that is vital to the nation’s energy security and economic stability. In preparation for this field demonstration, Tran made substantial contributions to the field of membrane science in three novel and industrially relevant areas: lab-scale membrane test cell design, small-pilot-scale plate and frame module design, and small pilot thin film composite fabrication techniques.