FIMLab facilities
FIMLab is made up of three main laboratories: the gas permeation laboratory, the characterisation laboratory and the wet chemistry laboratory. As we are located at the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland we also have access to a wide range preparation facilities and analytical techniques including: a clean room through the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and state of the art microscopy and microanalysis techniques through the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis. People interested in using our facilities and/or collaborating with us should contact A/Prof Joe da Costa or Dr Simon Smart.
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Our gas permeation laboratory is where we test our membranes and membrane reactors. The lab is equipped with several furnaces, a gas chromatograph, several rigs designed to mix and measure (with both rotameters and mass flow controllers) gas flow, hundreds of meters of Swagelok tubing and wide variety of different gases including H2, He, N2, Air, CO, CO2, O2 and custom mixtures. Our new facilities (currently under construction) will be a major upgrade both in terms of equipment and safety. The current system of gas cylinders and miles of Swagelok tubing will be replaced with a state of the art reticulated gas system with an automatic shutoff and a wall-to-wall fume cabinet. | |
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Our characterisation laboratory is home to our thermogravemetric analyser and our N2 adsorption machine. This lab is also where we test our hollow fibres for oxygen permeation and we have a dedicated gas chromatograph for this work. As with our gas permeation laboratory this lab will soon be made obsolete by our new state of the art facilities which are expected to be completed by April 2009. | |
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Our wet chemistry lab is where we get down and dirty and actually make most of our membrane materials. All the perovskites and hollow fibres are manufactured in this lab as are the sol-gels for our metal silica membranes. We also subject our membranes to trace elements (like H2S) in the fume cabinet to study how they affect membrane performance. This lab will remain unchanged and will operate in tandem with our new facilities, although the trace element testing will be moved the larger fume cabinet. | |
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The final piece of the FIMLab puzzle is located on Level 5 of the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology building. As the manufacture of our metal silica membranes requires a dust free environment, we perform the dip coating process in a clean room. | |
