Membranes and Sustainability

In the next decade, separation science promises as an important research topic in addressing complex sustainability-driven challenges like reducing carbon footprint, lowering energy cost, accelerating renewable fuel development, and making the chemical processes simpler. Among several emerging separation technologies, membranes have advantages in achieving superior bulk separation efficiency, reducing operating and capital costs, and a lower footprint. Despite having such benefits, the market penetration for membranes is relatively small compared to established technologies like cryogenic distillation for chemical processes, amine-based absorption for CO2 capture, and pressure swing adsorption technologies. Fundamental structure-property development, membrane fabrication, and prototype testing are three key research areas for accelerating membrane development. These three areas sit at the intersection of engineering, basic science, and science policy and partnerships. There is a need to develop a cross-functional, inter-agency membrane platform initiative to drive such goals. The presentation will focus on key membranes application areas like H2 fuel cells, water purification, waste plastic circularity, and carbon capture, emphasizing recent developments, market and societal needs, and proposed research topics.