Cell-inspired high-performance membranes

forthcoming

Membranes are applied in many industrial processes and their performance has significant energetic and economic impact. Improving this performance is therefore crucial to meet sustainability goals. Traditional synthetic membranes face a critical trade-off between permeability (speed of separation) and selectivity (precision of separation) which limits their capabilities. Biological membranes, instead, achieve both high selectivity and permeability through the combination of a molecularly thin barrier and specialized transport proteins, yet are too fragile and small for industrial use. Several efforts have been paid to mimic the design of cellular membranes, but the results lack of either scalability or performance. The CHIMERA project merges the best features of biological and synthetic membranes in a groundbreaking approach to high-performance biomimetic membranes. The innovative design of CHIMERA membranes integrates barrier and transport functionalities in the same molecular building block. Since transporters and membrane-forming moieties are connected but distinct, the barrier and transport functions of the resulting membranes are at the same time coupled (like in synthetic membranes) and decoupled (as in biological membranes). The synergy between barrier and transport functionalities introduced by this innovative design will enable the production of large-area membranes that remain molecularly thin and incorporate many transport units, leading to separation performance approaching that of biological membranes. This general approach is elaborated into three complementary strategies that target the realization of proof-of-concept charge selective, ion selective and isoporous CHIMERA membranes. These membranes will be scalable, cost-effective, and could greatly enhance the efficiency of energy-intensive separation processes, potentially offering both economic and environmental benefits.