The pharmaceutical industry and fine chemical industries produce a vast array of important drugs and consumer products that are ubiquitous in our daily lives. The manufacture of these molecules involves large quantities of organic solvents, which impose a significant economic, environmental and sustainability burdens on these manufacturing processes. It is typically challenging and often economically infeasible to recover and re-use organic solvents from industrial manufacturing processes.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Sui Zhang at NUS ChBE has invented a solution that could revolutionize this field – organic membrane materials for solvent filtration that incorporate graphene and withstand high temperatures and harsh solvents that severely limit the performance of conventional materials. They have accomplished this feat through a combination of molecular modeling, simulation, process modeling and materials synthesis, epitomizing the various aspects of engineering innovation.
Read all about it at:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/37/e2111360118
