Carbon membranes that capture pollutants from water

A MOF is excellent at trapping molecules, but in the laboratory it usually comes as a powder, and a powder is awkward to use in a real water-treatment system.

The solution? Transform it. Starting from a titanium MOF (MIL-125-NH2) we produced a carbon composite membrane that inherits its capture ability but in a far more manageable form.

With it we were able to extract emerging pollutants from water more efficiently, an important step towards taking these materials out of the lab vial and into a device that can actually be used.

It is a good example of an idea that guides all of my research: it is not enough to design a good material; you have to think from the very beginning about how it will be integrated into something useful.