{"id":2087,"date":"2021-05-05T21:50:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T13:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/?page_id=2087"},"modified":"2024-07-29T12:37:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T04:37:18","slug":"development-of-bio-inspired-artificial-channels-for-water-purification","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nus.edu.sg\/neri\/development-of-bio-inspired-artificial-channels-for-water-purification\/","title":{"rendered":"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul id=\"menu-research\"><li id=\"menu-item-133\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/research-tracks\/\">Research Tracks<\/a>\n<ul>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-134\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/environmental-surveillance-treatment\/\">Environmental Surveillance and Treatment<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-198\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/environmental-human-health\/\">Environmental and Human Health<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-169\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/resource-recovery-and-circular-economy\/\">Resource Recovery and Circular Economy<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-200\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/impact-climate-change\/\">Climate Change and the Environment<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-199\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/food-energy-and-water-nexus\/\">Food, Energy and Water Nexus in Urban Farming<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"menu-item-471\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/initiatives\/\">Programmes<\/a>\n<ul>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-754\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/e2s2\/\">E2S2<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-3142\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/covid-19-wastewater-surveillance-programme\/\">Covid-19 wastewater surveillance programme<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li id=\"menu-item-3609\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/intprep-organization\/\">INTPREP<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"menu-item-331\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/publications\/\">Publications<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"menu-item-332\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/research-features\/\">Research Features<\/a><\/li>\n<li id=\"menu-item-602\"><a href=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/research\/facilities\/\">Laboratory Facilities<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\t\n\t<h2>\n\t\t<strong>Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification<\/strong>\n\t<\/h2>\n\t<h6>Water scarcity is a problem worldwide, which is critical in land-scarce countries like Singapore. Membrane-based desalination is an advanced strategy used for water purification. Reverse osmosis employing thin film composite membrane is widely used for water desalination. However, this technology suffers from several limitations such as poor energy efficiency, high cost, insufficient ion<br \/>\nrejection and membrane fouling. Therefore, significant efforts are being made to develop novel technologies that minimize such limitations of water purification membranes.<\/h6>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/1-4.png\" alt=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 1\" itemprop=\"image\" title=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 1\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  \/>\n\t\n\t<h6>Natural water channels, aquaporins are transmembrane proteins which are highly selective for water molecules. Their unique structure featuring a narrow inner pore allows single file of water molecules to cross across the membrane with the transport rate of 109 water molecules\/second. Aquaporin-embedded biomimetic membranes have been developed for water purification. They are energy efficient, but producing sufficient quantity of the bulky protein is expensive.<\/h6>\n<h6>In an effort to improve on this, we have designed artificial channels (foldamer) based on information from the aquaporin structure. These foldamers are helical oligourea-based synthetic polymers, which have self-assembling properties and are designed to form controllable water-filled polar channels through sequence manipulation.<\/h6>\n<p>Preliminary studies have shown that these foldamer pores transport water. Because of their chemistry, foldamers are non-biodegradable, stable polymers and hence should offer longer life span for fabricated membranes. These novel foldamers have the potential to be covalently attached to synthetic membrane matrices. We propose to further design efficient foldamers with selective water and ion transport properties.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/2-5-768x399.png\" alt=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 2\" itemprop=\"image\" title=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 2\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  \/>\n\t<em>Foldamer nanostructures in aqueous phase (left). Crystal structure of the channel-type assembly of foldamer (right).<br \/>\n(Collie et al., Nature Chem 7, 871-878 (2015))<\/em>\n\t<h6>We have also investigated the water and ion permeability of several novel foldamers designed and synthesized under our project in lipid membranes using light-scattering and fluorescence-based assays. The ion transporters may find biomedical applications, while those exhibiting high water permeability and salt rejections as in aquaporin, can be used to fabricate synthetic membranes for future water purification applications.<\/h6>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nus.edu.sg\/neri\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/3-4.png\" alt=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 3\" itemprop=\"image\" title=\"Development of Bio-inspired Artificial Channels for Water Purification - 3\" onerror=\"this.style.display='none'\"  \/>\n\t<h6><em>Schematic representation of foldamer water channel embedded in membranes<\/em><\/h6>\n\tFor more details, please contact:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dbs.nus.edu.sg\/staffs\/prakash-kumar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Professor Prakash KUMAR<\/a><br \/>\nE-mail: <a href=\"mailto:dbskumar@nus.edu.sg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dbskumar@nus.edu.sg<\/a>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research Tracks Environmental Surveillance and Treatment Environmental and Human Health Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Climate Change and the Environment Food, Energy and Water Nexus in Urban Farming Programmes E2S2 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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