Bioinspired Membranes for Water Purification

水污染是一个复杂的全球社会经济问题，影响人类和动物的健康，并极大地影响农业和渔业，娱乐活动和运输等行业。世界卫生组织（世卫组织）最近估计，受污染的水每年造成近5亿人死亡。目前的过滤技术依赖于膜的特定物理化学性质和要去除的目标分子，在广泛的应用领域中效果不佳，其制造通常需要复杂而昂贵的多步工艺，相关能源成本也很高。在本项目中，我们将开发生物启发膜作为水净化技术的新解决方案，以最小的能量输入需求选择性地去除污染物。利用先进的聚合物合成策略，我们将开发新的定制聚合物，这些聚合物可以提取能够以精确的特异性将分子跨膜移动的跨膜蛋白，并使其随后能够并入仿生人工膜。这将使水净化膜具有前所未有的分子选择性和特异性。该项目开发的新膜技术将有助于推进和发展膜科学的前景。设计的平台材料和方法将可转移到其他膜过滤和水净化应用中，并将使通用制造工艺能够提供高性能的可重复使用，可回收的设备，有助于循环经济。联合国在关于清洁水和卫生设施的可持续发展目标6中认识到了这种新系统的必要性。

Polluted water is a complex global socioeconomic issue that affects human and animal health, and greatly impacts industries such as agriculture and fishing, recreational activities and transportation. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently estimated that contaminated water is responsible for almost 500 million deaths per year. In a wide range of applications across sectors, current filtration technologies are ineffective, relying on the specific physicochemical properties of the membrane and the target molecule(s) to be removed, and their manufacture often requires complex and expensive multi-step processes with high associated energy costs.In this project, we will develop bioinspired membranes as new solutions for water purification technologies, selectively removing contaminants with minimal energy input requirements. Utilising advanced polymer synthesis strategies, we will develop new bespoke polymers that can extract transmembrane proteins capable of moving molecules across membrane with exquisite specificity and enable their subsequent incorporation into biomimetic artificial membranes. This will afford water purification membranes with previously unrivalled molecular selectivity and specificity.The new membrane technology developed in this project will help to advance and evolve the landscape of membrane science. The platform materials and approaches devised will be transferrable to additional membrane filtration and water purification applications and will enable universal manufacturing processes to afford high-performance reusable, recyclable devices that can contribute to a circular economy. The need for such new systems is recognised by the UN with Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation.