Membranes have emerged as a critical element in solving societally important problems, such as CO₂ capture, water purification, fuel cells, and batteries, where understanding and controlling the transport of small molecules (gas, water, and ions) in the membranes are the core to enable the technologies. The increasing level of synthetic control over chemical functions and multidimensional structures of polymers, inorganic materials, and hybrids enables the design of next-generation devices with unprecedented multifunctionality and high performance. In the past decade, there has been tremendous interest in developing structure/property relationship, which is used to guide the development of high-performance materials with new chemistry and nanostructures.

This symposium will provide a platform to bring together membrane practitioners at the cutting edge of new membranes development and application (who may not have extensive experience in materials synthesis and characterization) with materials chemists and physics (who make and characterize new functional materials but have little membranes experience). This forum aims to give an opportunity for sharing new materials ideas and membrane needs/possibilities, that serves to catalyze new collaborations and enable development of next-generation membranes for practical applications.

Abstracts on both fundamental and applied aspects of the modeling, synthesis, self-assembly, and characterization of polymers, inorganic materials, and hierarchically nanostructured inorganic/polymer hybrids, and their application involved with the transport of small molecules including energy-efficient gas separation and water purification, fuel cells, batteries, and supercapacitors, are encouraged.

absorption barrier layer diffusion energy storage ion-exchange material ionic conductor Sustainability