(8c) Functionalized Membranes for Environmental Applications: An Overview

Membrane processes such as, Reverse Osmosis, Nanofiltration, Ultrafiltration, and Microfiltration have provided many successful applications ranging from high quality water production to material recovery, but incorporation of biological aspects in membranes should add immense value in the area of separations and material capture. The questions are: can we make membranes which can capture toxic metals at high capacity? Can we add functional moiety in pores which can go through conformation changes and results in tunable separations? Can we make layer-by-assembly in pores to immobilize enzymes for catalysis? The answers to all of these are yes if we can integrate life sciences field with synthetic membranes to make tunable and functionalized materials. This overview presentation will cover some tunable aspects of separations and green synthesis of water related chemicals.