Low carbon selective separation

In environmental applications, separation technologies enable isolating solutes (e.g., pollutants) from the solvent (e.g., polluted wastewater) to achieve in-depth treatment of waste streams. However, conventional separation technologies often have low selectivity and waste extra energy and carbon emissions on non-target solute separation. Selective separation enables isolating only target solute with high accuracy, which significantly improves separation efficiency and warrants more applications such as resource recovery to produce high-purity products. Currently, separation technologies are increasingly transitioning to high selectivity, but selective separations still embed high carbon emissions, especially in chemicals consumed throughout the separation process. We aim to develop the next-generation separation technologies with both high selectivity and low carbon emissions, such as developing selective ion exchangers, electrodes, and membranes, and integrating them into CO2-driven or electricity-driven separation processes. We envision low carbon selective separation to promise more sustainable environmental applications in the carbon-neutral era.