New membrane materials: biomimetics

One of eight projects in the Advanced Membrane Technologies for Water Treatment Research Cluster, New Membrane Materials – Biomimetics aims to apply the designs found in nature to new innovations in membrane technology.

• 2 January 2008 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Background
• The approach
• Outcomes
• Partners

Background

Inspired by Nature, biomimetic engineering mimics natural systems and processes, using molecular self-assembly as the key link between physics, chemistry and biology, and creating novel advanced structures, materials, and devices.

Maturing of conventional technologies and inadequate performance is driving science to seek new paradigms based on biological concepts and methods for engineering solutions.

CSIRO scientists recently copied nature to produce a near-perfect rubber from resilin, the remarkable elastic protein that facilitates flight and jumping in insects.

Our biomimetics team are looking to nature for the clues that will develop the next generation of membranes for use in desalination technologies.

The approach

This project will develop a greater understanding of the pore structure and membrane processes of diatoms, a unicellular phytoplankton encased in a cell wall made of silicate.

Using microfluidic flow visualisation methods and numerical models, we will examine the role of pore architecture in the filtration mechanism of select species of diatoms and other biological structural membrane filters

The project will build on previous work of our program partners, taking current understanding of diatom pore architecture and completing a systematic investigation of the role of the pore structure in separation and filtration.

We hope to develop methods to mimic the diatom pore structure in manufactured membranes.

Outcomes

The project aims to deliver advances in membrane design, including:

• a step change reduction in energy requirements and increase separation efficiency from biomimetic membranes
• a fundamental membrane flow visualisation technique to help characterise and understand the fundamental properties and performance membranes
• the use of nature to gain an understanding of the properties that will allow for the most efficient separation and filtration method
• the ability to design membranes based on mimicking nature’s design.

It is envisaged that this pore structure optimisation will form a part of a method that significantly reduces energy consumption for desalination.

Partners

Partners and interested parties include:

• Water for a Healthy Country Flagship
• Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia 
• Deakin University, Victoria, Australia
• Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria
• Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia
• Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Melbourne
• The University of Melbourne
• The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW, Australia
• The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
• Victoria University, Australia.

Read more about our other New Membrane Materials, Inorganic-organic nanocomposite electrodialysis membranes for high-performance desalination  and New membrane materials: multi-functional RO membranes.