Nano manufacturing of ultrathin membranes

超越现有技术，在这里我们提出制造最终薄的纳米膜，其包括埃级孔/通道，具有最小的缺陷。埃通道在许多自然现象中具有重要意义，例如树木中的毛细上升，岩石沉积物中的气体冷凝，离子通道/泵等。为了模拟自然系统的功能，正在合成设计几种类似尺寸的人工孔/通道。这样的孔可用于许多技术，包括过滤、分子分离、脱盐、DNA测序等。该项目的主要目标是开发通过切割多孔和层状材料大规模生产坚固多孔纳米膜的方法。虽然有几个优秀的多孔和层状材料，具有埃级通道，有几个瓶颈，将它们纳入膜，以充分利用其在应用中的潜力，如过滤，离子筛分，发电等，此外，当这样的多孔材料被浇铸成膜，孔堵塞，脆性，控制通道长度和泄漏路径也是主要问题。在这里，我们解决所有这些问题，通过使用一个简单而强大的技术，从切片的原始材料嵌入树脂基质制造纳米膜。我们提出了一种稳健的、可扩展的技术，用纳米材料制造可渗透膜，可用于分子分离、渗透、燃料电池、超级电容器等。这项研究将在曼彻斯特大学和国家石墨烯研究所进行。通过该项目获得的精确纳米制造人员的培训，对许多学术和工业领域具有极其重要的意义，因为它支持物理学，材料化学和纳米流体学的基本概念，满足了对训练有素的研究人员的不断增长的需求，这些人员具有适当的技术知识，技能和专业知识。这种有凝聚力和创新的方法将开发新的工具，对膜中多孔材料的精确组装至关重要。

Going beyond the state-of-the-art, here we propose to make nanomembranes which are ultimately thin, comprising angstrom-scale pores/channels, with minimal defects. Angstrom channels have significance in many natural phenomena such as capillary rise in trees, gas condensation in rock sediments, in ion channels/pumps etc. To mimic the functioning of natural systems, several artificial pores/channels of similar sizes are being engineered synthetically. Such pores can be used in many technologies including filtration, molecular separation, desalination, DNA sequencing to name but a few. The key aim of the project is to develop methods to produce robust porous nanomembranes on a large scale by slicing porous and layered materials. While there are several excellent porous and layered materials which have angstrom-scale channels, there are several bottlenecks to incorporate them into membranes to utilize their full potential in applications such as filtration, ion sieving, power generation etc. Moreover, when such porous materials are cast into membranes, the pore clogging, fragility, control on the channel length and leaky paths are also major issues. Here we address all these problems by using a simple and robust technique for manufacturing nanomembranes from slicing the pristine materials embedded in a resin matrix. We propose a robust, scalable technique to make ultrathin membranes with nanomaterials, which are useful for molecular separation, osmosis, fuel cells, supercapacitors etc.The research will be carried out in University of Manchester, and National graphene Institute. Training of personnel in precise nano-manufacturing which is acquired though this project, is of immense importance to many areas of academic and industrial by underpinning fundamentals concepts in physics, materials chemistry, and nanofluidics, catering to the continually growing need for well-trained research personnel with appropriate technical knowledge, skills and expertise. This cohesive and innovative approach will develop new tools essential for precise assembly of porous materials in membranes.