Graphene oxide-fullerene nanocomposite laminates for efficient hydrogen purification.

Graphene oxide (GO) with its unique two-dimensional structure offers an emerging platform for designing advanced gas separation membranes that allow for highly selective transport of hydrogen molecules. Nevertheless, further tuning of the interlayer spacing of GO laminates and its effect on membrane separation efficiency remains to be explored. Here, positively charged fullerene C derivatives are electrostatically bonded to the surface of GO sheets in order to manipulate the interlayer spacing between GO nanolaminates.

Carbonic Anhydrase-Mimicking Supramolecular Nanoassemblies for Developing Carbon Capture Membranes.

As a ubiquitous family of enzymes with high performance in converting carbon dioxide (CO) into bicarbonate, carbonic anhydrases (CAs) sparked enormous attention for carbon capture. Nevertheless, the high cost and operational instability of CAs hamper their practical relevance, and the utility of CAs is mainly limited to aqueous applications where CO-to-bicarbonate conversion is possible. Taking advantage of the chemical motif that endows CA-like active sites (metal-coordinated histidine), here we introduce a new line of high-performance gas separation membranes with CO-philic behavior.

Structural colour enhanced microfluidics.

Advances in microfluidic technology towards flexibility, transparency, functionality, wearability, scale reduction or complexity enhancement are currently limited by choices in materials and assembly methods. Organized microfibrillation is a method for optically printing well-defined porosity into thin polymer films with ultrahigh resolution. Here we demonstrate this method to create self-enclosed microfluidic devices with a few simple steps, in a number of flexible and transparent formats.

Tuning the Gas Selectivity of Tröger's Base Polyimide Membranes by Using Carboxylic Acid and Tertiary Base Interactions.

Polyimide-based materials provide attractive chemistries for the development of gas-separation membranes. Modification of inter- and intra-chain interactions is a route to improve the separation performance. In this work, copolyimides with Tröger's base (TB) monomers are designed and synthesized.

Pentiptycene-Based Polyurethane with Enhanced Mechanical Properties and CO-Plasticization Resistance for Thin Film Gas Separation Membranes.

The development of thin film composite (TFC) membranes offers an opportunity to achieve the permeability/selectivity requirements for optimum CO separation performance. However, the durability and performance of thin film gas separation membranes are mostly challenged by weak mechanical properties and high CO plasticization. Here, we designed new polyurethane (PU) structures with bulky aromatic chain extenders that afford preferred mechanical properties for ultra-thin-film formation.

A facile synthesis of contorted spirobisindane-diamine and its microporous polyimides for gas separation.

Microporous polyimides (PIM-PIs, KAUST-PIs) and polymers containing Tröger's base (TB) derivatives with improved permeability and selectivity have great importance for separation of environmental gas pairs. Despite the tremendous progress in this field, facile synthesis of microporous polymers at the industrial scale designing new monomers is still lacking. In this study, a new potential approach for large scale synthesis of spirobisindane diamine (DAS) (3) has been reported from commercially available 5,5',6,6'-tetrahydroxy-3,3,3',3'-tetramethyl-1,1'-spirobisindane (TTSBI) and 3,4-difluoronitrobenzene.

Controlled thermal oxidative crosslinking of polymers of intrinsic microporosity towards tunable molecular sieve membranes.

Organic open frameworks with well-defined micropore (pore dimensions below 2 nm) structure are attractive next-generation materials for gas sorption, storage, catalysis and molecular level separations. Polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) represent a paradigm shift in conceptualizing molecular sieves from conventional ordered frameworks to disordered frameworks with heterogeneous distributions of microporosity. PIMs contain interconnected regions of micropores with high gas permeability but with a level of heterogeneity that compromises their molecular selectivity.