From membrane material synthesis to fabrication and function (SynFabFun)

膜为更高效、更低能耗、更可持续的分离提供了令人兴奋的机会，甚至是全新的工艺选择，因此在能源有限的世界里是一个有价值的工具。然而，高性能聚合物膜、无机膜和陶瓷膜都存在随着时间推移而性能衰减的问题，比如膜老化（膜材料松弛）和/或污染（外来物质积聚在膜内或膜上），这严重限制了它们的影响。我们的愿景是创造一种不会老化或污垢的膜，因此分离功能可以随着时间的推移而保持。我们将通过合成新膜材料和制造新型膜复合材料（聚合物，陶瓷和杂化）的结合来实现这一目标，并辅以新的表征技术。我们的目标是改变全球膜界对性能的看法。通过展示具有不朽性能的膜，我们试图将注意力从获得更高初始渗透率的竞赛转移到具有长期稳定性能并在工业应用中取得成功的膜的创造上。

Membranes offer exciting opportunities for more efficient, lower energy, more sustainable separations and even entirely new process options - and so are a valuable tool in an energy constrained world. However, high performance polymeric, inorganic and ceramic membranes all suffer from problems with decay in performance over time, through either membrane ageing (membrane material relaxation) and/or fouling (foreign material build-up in and/or on the membrane), and this seriously limits their impact.Our vision is to create membranes which do not suffer from ageing or fouling, and for which separation functionality is therefore maintained over time. We will achieve this through a combination of the synthesis of new membrane materials and fabrication of novel membrane composites (polymeric, ceramic and hybrids), supported by new characterisation techniques. Our ambition is to change the way the global membrane community perceives performance. Through the demonstration of membranes with immortal performance, we seek to shift attention away from a race to achieve ever higher initial permeability, to creation of membranes with long-term stable performance which are successful in industrial application.