Industrial gas separation processes account for an estimated 15 percent of global energy consumption. Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), together with academic collaborators in China and France, have now developed a new membrane technology that could help reduce that burden while overcoming a longstanding obstacle that has prevented advanced membrane materials from being manufactured at industrial scale.  

Published in  Nature, the research focuses on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), highly porous materials capable of separating molecules with exceptional precision. While MOFs have long been viewed as promising alternatives to energy-intensive industrial separation processes, their performance has been difficult to maintain when moving from laboratory demonstrations to large-scale manufacturing.  

The team developed a new membrane architecture that allows membranes to contain more than 90 percent MOF material while remaining flexible, durable, and compatible with existing manufacturing methods. Traditional membranes require polymers to hold materials together, but adding too much polymer can reduce performance. The researchers overcame this challenge using a small molecular anchor that links MOF nanosheets with surrounding polymer chains, allowing the membrane to function as a single integrated structure.  

As a demonstration of industrial relevance, the team successfully produced continuous membrane rolls measuring 20 meters in length using roll-to-roll manufacturing equipment at facilities in China, showing that the technology can be manufactured using processes already familiar to industry.  

“Industrial separations consume enormous amounts of energy every day,” said Professor Mohamed Eddaoudi, professor of Chemical Science at KAUST and a corresponding author of the study.  

“The challenge has never been discovering materials capable of performing these separations, but finding ways to manufacture them at the scale industry requires. This work provides a practical pathway for doing that and brings advanced membrane technologies much closer to real-world deployment.”  

The international study was led by Professor Sheng Zhou of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), a former KAUST Ph.D. student, and brought together researchers from KAUST, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Tsinghua University, the University of Montpellier, and the French Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS. The work builds on earlier research led by Professor Mohamed Eddaoudi's group at KAUST that helped lay the foundations for this latest advance.  

The team demonstrated strong performance across several important industrial separations, including carbon capture, hydrogen purification, and propylene purification, a key process in the petrochemical industry. In one demonstration, the membrane produced polymer-grade propylene in a single stage and maintained performance during 150 days of continuous operation.  

Modeling conducted as part of the study suggests the technology could reduce purification costs by up to 80 percent compared with conventional distillation, which relies on repeatedly heating and cooling gases to separate them.  

Beyond petrochemical processing, the researchers believe the membrane design could support a broad range of applications where reducing energy consumption is a priority, including carbon dioxide capture, natural gas purification, hydrogen recovery, and direct air capture.  

As industries seek more efficient ways to separate and purify gases, the researchers say the new membrane design provides a scalable route for translating advanced materials research into practical technologies.