MIT News October 16, 2020
Researchers at MIT have developed a gas gating mechanism driven by reversible electrochemical metal deposition/dissolution on a conductive membrane, which can continuously modulate the interfacial gas permeability over two orders of magnitude with high efficiency and short response time. The gating mechanism involves neither moving parts nor dead volume and can therefore enable various engineering processes. An electrochemically mediated carbon dioxide concentrator demonstrates proof of concept by integrating the gating membranes with redox-active sorbents, where gating effectively prevented the crosstalk between feed and product gas streams for high-efficiency, directional carbon dioxide pumping. The system could be adapted to a wide variety of chemical separation and purification processes. Their concept of dynamically regulating transport at gas-liquid interfaces could broadly inspire systems in fields of gas separation, miniaturized devices, multiphase reactors, and beyond…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Schematics showing the working principles of an electrochemically mediated gas gating membrane. Credit: Science Advances 16 Oct 2020: Vol. 6, no. 42, eabc1741