Nanoporous membranes for high efficiency filtering applications

Project and Thesis Topic

• Nanoporous membranes, possessing high filtering efficiency, are a promising approach for addressing critical environmental issues, such as the lack of fresh water supply in many parts of the world and the excessive emission of green-house gases. The membranes also play an important role in chemical processing for cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. The ideal membranes need to have: (i) a minimal thickness for maximal permeance, (ii) a nanoscale and uniform pore size for high filtering selectivity, (iii) a sufficient mechanical strength under relatively high pressure, and a large enough area for practical applications.
• Recently, we have developed a novel nanoporous membrane by combining sputtering, microfabrication and ion implantation. As shown in Fig. 1, the membrane features high density of the nanoscale pores. Importantly, our approach enables large-scale production of the materials. In the near term, we will continue to investigate the materials in both fundamental and applied aspects. Hence, this project provides a wide variety of subjects for enthusiastic students, from experimental physics to applications and equipment development.

Join this project, you will learn:

• Fabricating the membranes using sputtering, microfabrication and ion implantation.
• Characterizing the membrane using electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and nanoindentation.
• Fundamental aspects of interactions between energetic ions and materials, and the mechanism of the pore formation.
• Developing equipment for the filtering experiments.

For more information, please contact tuan.tran@physics.uu.se, forskare (research scientist), Department of Physics and Astronomy