Jeffrey R. McCutcheon, Ph.D.
Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
University of Connecticut
United Technologies Engineering Building
191 Auditorium Drive, Room 286
Storrs, CT 06269-3222
Email: jeff@engr.uconn.edu
Phone: (860) 486-4601
Fax: (860) 486-2959
Website: http://www.cmbe.engr.uconn.edu/profile_mccutcheon_jeffrey.html
Jeffrey McCutcheon is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical,
Materials & Biomolecular Engineering and at the University of Connecticut. He also serves as a Center
Faculty at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering. Since his appointment in Fall of
2008, he has established the Sustainable Water and Energy Learning Laboratory (SWELL), an
interdisciplinary research-learning environment that supports ten graduate students and over a dozen
undergraduate researchers. His primary research efforts are focused on engineered osmotic processes,
including forward osmosis (FO) and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO). His work has resulted in 25
publications and a number of invited seminars around the world including in The Netherlands, China,
Korea and Saudi Arabia. He is the recipient of the 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant, the Solvay Advanced
Polymers Young Faculty Award, and was recently named a DuPont Young Faculty. He is also an elected
Director in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Separations Division and serves on the North
American Membrane Society Board of Directors.
New Membranes for Forward and Pressure Retarded Osmosis
The shortage of energy and water resources is a grand challenge facing humanity in the 21st century.
Engineered osmosis (EO) technologies have been increasingly investigated as an alternative means of
sustainable water and energy production. These membrane technologies exploit the gradient of osmotic
pressure between a dilute feed solution and a concentrated draw solution as a driving force for water
treatment (forward osmosis) and electricity generation (pressure retarded osmosis). However, EO
development has been hindered by the lack of appropriately-designed membranes that exhibit high water
flux, superior selectivity, chemical stability and adequate mechanical strength. New membranes can be
either developed through the modification of existing membrane platforms or through the fabrication of
novel structures. At the University of Connecticut, we are using both approaches. Chemical modification
of commercially available reverse osmosis membranes has yielded a 10-fold increase in water flux over
unmodified membranes. We have also fabricated radically improved support structures for thin film
composite membranes using nylon 6,6 microfiltration membranes and electrospun nanofibers, resulting in
a 2- to 5-fold increase in water flux over the best commercially available forward osmosis membrane with
a dramatically lower solute flux. Further improvement in these membrane designs will enable this
emerging technology platform.