Applications of Polymeric Membranes in Industries

Separation contributes a big share (20-80%) in various industries (pharma, chemical, food, agriculture, etc.) In some cases, there is a large scope for reducing capex and opex required for liquid/gas separations, if membrane technology could be employed. Although membranes are known to everyone (water purification, blood-dialysis, etc.); they are known to be costly for industrial use. I will be speaking on some of the applications of membrane-tech, (dewatering, biogas purification, and hydrogen separation); wherein tech-indigenization offers a huge tech-commercial potential. I will also be touching upon some routine issues, where large scope of membrane applications exists.

Our research group have expertise in Membrane Science and Technology. The group mainly focus to pursue the research to understand the structure-permeation property relation in polymeric membranes. Proton exchange membranes for PEM fuel cell, MOF-polymer composite membranes for gas separation, development of PIL based CO2 selective membranes, hollow fibre membranes for water purification and O2/N2 enrichment and acid separation using chemodialysis, membrane reactor development are the key features of our laboratory. We are also deeply involved in exploration of various polymeric membranes and their materials based applications. We are also synthesizing various types PBIs and their structural variants for gas separation and PEMFC applications.