Chemical Engineering engineers develop extremely permeable, very strong nanofilm

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Researcher Santanu Karan with his free-standing nanofilm

Engineers from the Department have developed an ultrathin membrane that is both extremely permeable & very strong. The study was published in Science.

Exciting new research carried out in Andrew Livingston’s group in the Department of Chemical Engineering has been published in Science, one of the world’s top scientific journals. In the study the researchers produced ultrathin (<10 nm) synthetic membranes that can filter small molecules from organic solutes. These nanofilms are extremely permeable, yet very strong. Possible applications of the membranes include purifying organic mixtures in industries such as pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and oil refining.

The researchers involved were Santanu Karan, Zhiwei Jiang and Andrew Livingston.

The paper was published in the 19 June 2015 issue of Science:

Sub–10 nm polyamide nanofilms with ultrafast solvent transport for molecular separation; Santanu Karan, Zhiwei Jiang, Andrew G. Livingston.

A Perspective article on the paper was included in the same issue:

Outperforming nature's membranes; Viatcheslav Freger.

Imperial College issued a press release and video to accompany the publication:

'Crumpled' filter has potential to slash energy consumption in industry

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The study was also covered by a number of news outlets and trade publications:

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Michael Panagopulos

Michael Panagopulos
Department of Chemical Engineering

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Email: press.office@imperial.ac.uk
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