Membranes

Clean TeQ Water has announced it has received the Commonwealth Simple Grant under the BRII: Renewables and Low Emissions Round – Feasibility program. This grant, facilitated by the Department of Industry, Science, and Resources, provides AU$80,000 (around USD$630,000) to support Clean TeQ Water’s innovative efforts to revolutionize drinking water treatment for remote communities. The grant will fund a feasibility study to assess the potential of NematiQ Graphene Membranes as a solution for drinking water treatment.

The project, “Graphene Membranes: Revolutionizing Drinking Water for Remote Communities”, will explore the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability of the Graphene Membrane technology. It aims to improve water quality in underserved and remote areas, demonstrate the scalability and environmental benefits of Graphene Membranes, and lay the groundwork for a potential proof-of-concept phase, where up to AU$1M of funding for real-world field trials and pilot implementation is expected to be available for the projects deemed most feasible.

Singapore-based Memsift Innovations has entered into a technology transfer agreement with Singapore’s Ngee Ann Polytechnic on an innovative graphene membrane technology.

It was explained that the technology, featuring graphene oxide-based hollow fiber ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes, was developed based on over a decade of research and development. The ultrafiltration technology utilizes a graphene oxide-block copolymer composite renowned for its exceptional chemical and thermal stability, making it ideal for harsh industrial applications. Its unique surface chemistry forms a protective water layer that effectively prevents fouling. The nanofiltration technology employs a robust single-layer modified graphene oxide membrane with synthetic water channels, enhancing selectivity and permeability. This enables efficient molecular-level separation and differentiation between monovalent and multivalent ions.

Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found that reducing graphene oxide (GO) membranes with ultraviolet (UV) light alters the oxygen functional groups on the GO surface. This modification results in a different, chromatography-like separation mechanism that is selective for charge rather than size.

Image credit: Chemical Engineering Journal

Developing efficient, selective, and scalable separations for critical materials, including lithium and magnesium, is essential to meeting the increasing demands for clean energy technologies and alleviating challenges with domestic supply chains. GO membranes have shown promise for separating ions from mixed solutions based on size.

Canada-based Evercloak's HVAC technology recently received a funding boost, with CAD$1.1 million (over USD$807,000) in funding from Natural Resources Canada's Energy Innovation Program (EIP).

The EIP funding supports a $1.8M project enabling Evercloak to accelerate the development of their membrane-based system, which can cut the energy required for air conditioning and dehumidification by up to 50%. According to the Company's founder and CEO, Evelyn Allen, those reductions will be crucial as global temperatures rise.

Australia-based NematiQ has announced that after more than a decade of work, the NematiQ Graphene Oxide membrane has obtained WaterMark certification, solidifying its status as a safe product for water filtration. 

The Australian WaterMark Certification Scheme is a mandatory scheme for plumbing and drainage products of a certain type. Certification ensures products are fit for purpose and appropriately authorized for use in plumbing and drainage installations. The Australian Building Codes Board administers and manages the Scheme.

Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have developed advanced graphene membranes with pyridinic-nitrogen at pore edges, reportedly showing unprecedented performance in CO₂ capture. This could mark a step towards more efficient carbon capture technologies.

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a technology that reduces carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from hard-to-abate industrial sources such as power plants, cement factories, steel mills, and waste incinerators. But current capture methods rely on energy-intensive processes, which makes them costly and unsustainable. Researchers are working to develop membranes that can selectively capture CO₂ with high efficiency, thereby reducing the energy and financial costs associated with CCUS. But even state-of-the-art membranes, such as polymer thin films, are limited in terms of CO₂ permeance and selectivity, which limits their scalability. So, the challenge is to create membranes that can simultaneously offer high CO₂ permeance and selectivity, crucial for effective carbon capture.

The EU-funded MEGAMORPH project, which started in 2022, demonstrated its graphene-based display technology at Displayweek 2024.

The idea behind the project is to use CVD graphene sheets (produced by Graphenea, a partner in the project) as the semi-transparent membranes in a Interferometric Modulator Display. These kinds of displays use mechanical micro-mirrors as pixels that modulate the ambient light without using power to generate light. IMOD displays are promising as they can offer very low power operation and high density displays.

Canada-based Evercloak, that aims to turn the theoretical potential of membrane-based dehumidification into a viable commercial option with its method of manufacturing graphene composite membranes at scale, has announced that it has raised CAD$2 Million (around USD$1,475,000) in an oversubscribed seed round of investment, driven by interest in its HVAC technology. 

By reducing the amount of electricity required to dehumidify air — the most energy-intensive part of cooling — Evercloak’s membrane-based solution can cut the energy demands of air conditioning in half.

Researchers from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and China's Southeast University have reported a graphene-based aqueous memristive device with long-term and tunable memory, regulated by reversible voltage-induced interfacial acid-base equilibria enabled by selective proton permeation through the graphene. 

Memristive devices, electrical elements whose resistance depends on the history of applied electrical signals, are leading candidates for future data storage and neuromorphic computing. Memristive devices typically rely on solid-state technology, while aqueous memristive devices are crucial for biology-related applications such as next-generation brain-machine interfaces. Recently, nanofluidic devices have been reported in which solvated ion transport exhibits memristive behavior. The challenge associated with these approaches is the complexity of the device fabrication. Realizing memristive behavior in a simple system is highly desirable.

Ora Graphene, producer of free-standing graphene membranes, announced a partnership with Taiwan-based Merry Electronics to develop off-the-shelf GrapheneQ headphone drivers. These, according to Ora, will be the world's first commercially available graphene-based drivers. The two companies will offer 40 mm and 50 mm drivers, which will be available for pre-order in Q1 2024.

Ora Graphene says that it already integrated its technology into flagship products for two major consumer electronics companies - both of these premium gaming headphones. The availability of off-the-shelf headphone drivers will hopefully accelerate the adoption of Ora's technology.