Better Water Filtration Possible With Self-Assembling Membranes

A team of Chemical and Biomedical engineers from Penn State University, Fundan University, University of Illinois and Harvard Medical School have developed a synthetic water channel that mimics the natural water channel proteins called "aquaporins" in a much better way by being easy to manufacture and more more stable. This international team of researchers came up with the thought of using a self-assembling synthetic membrane for better water purification, DNA recognition, gas separation and drug delivery. This biomimetic membrane is able to self-assemble into 2D structures with parallel water channels which transfer water as fast as the natural membranes.


Manish Kumar, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering as Penn State says that they were amazed to see the transport rates at the speed of one billion water molecules per channel per second.

They found that the synthetic channels could associate amongst themselves inside a membrane to create 3D arrays that have a high pore density.

The researchers believe that the PAP (peptide-appended pillar[5]arenes) membranes are way better than the first-generation artificial water channels ever produced.

The various engineering applications that can result from this are because of the propensity for these channels to form densely packed arrays automatically.

The most practical use of this research work is to make super-efficient water purification membranes and they are already working on it.

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