Research Projects

Water desalination is an energy intensive and high-cost method to generate clean water. Given the rise in global demand for water and the increasing measures to reduce energy consumption there is a need for innovative technologies for water desalination. Natural aquaporin proteins have extremely high permeability and selectivity for water. The water-permeability of these pores surpasses most synthetic polymeric membranes used for separation technologies. Bio-inspired composite membranes containing aquaporins show improved water-selectivity but are not very commercially viable due to high costs of Aquaporin production and low protein stability over prolonged use. Synthetic molecules that can selectively transport water across membranes are attractive alternatives to aquaporins. There are large breakthroughs in the area of synthetic ion channels for transport of cations and anions. The number of synthetic water channels is few because it is extremely difficult to transport water selectively over other charged species. The proposal aims to address this gap by developing macrocyclic amide derived pores that incorporate key design elements of aquaporin channels for enhanced water permeability. To improve utility of these channels, amphiphilic polymer vesicles will also be developed to house these water-pores. The synthetic bio-membranes will be more stable than natural lipids for long term use. Lastly, to enhance the stability of the bio-membranes efforts will be made to covalently strengthen the channel-membrane assembly. The efficiency of these synthetic water-channels will be carefully assessed using standard biophysical assays to obtain the optimal bio-membranes. Given the large growing need for innovative technologies for water-purification, development of such biologically inspired membranes is critical.