British R&D Next Generation Filter Enhances Industrial Productivity

Filtration membranes have large-scale applications in water treatment, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries, and are an important industrial material. British Imperial College announced on the 16th that the school will cooperate with many British institutions to develop a new generation of membrane materials to enhance industrial production efficiency.

The world's large amounts of energy are consumed in various types of filtration operations, such as sewage treatment, petrochemical finishing, etc. However, the currently used membranes have many shortcomings, including short life, high energy consumption, and high manufacturing costs.

According to reports, Imperial College, together with the University of Bath, the University of Manchester, and Newcastle University, has created a dedicated research collaboration to jointly develop new materials that will enhance the performance of industrial films. One of the projects led by Imperial College will study how to use polymer and ceramics to make a new generation of membranes.

The researchers said that the current industrial membranes will become very poor in permeability after a period of use, resulting in reduced filtration efficiency and increased energy consumption. If you use high-molecular polymers and ceramics to make the film, it is expected to solve this problem, so that it can maintain a higher filtration efficiency for a longer period of time.

Andrew Livingstone, a professor at Imperial College who participated in the project, said that although modern society has used membranes extensively to carry out filtration operations from water to oil, the materials used to manufacture these membranes have not been used for too long in the past. Many changes, which affect the efficiency of the use of the membrane, a new generation of membranes in research and development is expected to change this situation, and then benefit the production of a number of industrial industries.