Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Platform

About the Platform

The Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Platform is a unique hub of scientists, who are collaborative and goal-oriented, focused on important industrial separations using membranes and porous materials. Our team includes chemists and chemical engineers who tackle common challenges, targeting highly energy-intensive applications in petrochemicals, natural gas processing, and air separation.

This collaborative effort enhances research in membrane and porous materials while striving to merge these two material classes into mixed-matrix membranes.

Our research philosophy is collaborative, goal-oriented, and works to substantially reduce energy costs and increase sustainability through reduced waste production and benign carbon capture technologies. We carry out these objectives in collaboration with academic and industrial partners. Our aim is to enhance the prosperity of the Kingdom and the world through innovative research.

We welcome colleagues from KAUST and partner universities across the Kingdom to benefit from our facilities and infrastructure. We also encourage collaborative engagements with our platform staff in advancing the AMPM Platform's research and innovation goals. To explore opportunities or discuss potential ideas, please reach out to any of the team members listed below.

Additionally, we offer comprehensive training for students, postdoctoral researchers, and scientists, equipping the next generation to advance innovation in this field.

Platform Infrastructure

The Advance Membranes and Porous Materials Platform is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and assets that support our cutting-edge research initiatives. The infrastructure includes:

Dedicated laboratories: Specialized labs for membrane and porous material synthesis, characterization, and testing.
Pilot-scale facilities: Equipped for the scale-up of absorbents and membranes, ensuring seamless transition from laboratory to industrial applications.
Advanced characterization tools: A range of instruments for analyzing material properties, including porosity, surface area, and mechanical strength.
Collaborative workspaces: Spaces designed to support collaboration among scientists from different disciplines, promoting the exchange of ideas and expertise.
Research support services: Access to technical support and resources aimed at optimizing research productivity and innovation.

A researcher at KAUST’s Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Platform examines a flat-sheet membrane developed for gas separation, where well-defined microstructure and robust structural integrity are essential for achieving and valorizing high selectivity and permeability.

A researcher at KAUST’s Advanced Membrane and Porous Materials Platform operates the Micromeritics 3Flex Surface Characterization Analyzer, a high-precision instrument used to measure gas adsorption isotherms, surface area, and pore size distribution of porous materials such as MOFs and membranes, supporting the valorization of their adsorption and surface properties.

A researcher at KAUST’s Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Platform prepares a membrane sample for testing in a gas permeation setup, designed to assess the separation performance of advanced membranes under industrially relevant conditions, enabling the valorization of their selectivity and permeability capabilities.

A researcher at KAUST’s Advanced Membrane and Porous Materials Platform prepares a sample for analysis using a single-crystal X-ray diffractometer, a high-precision instrument used to determine the structure of porous materials and the atomic and molecular structure of crystalline materials with exceptional accuracy.

Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Platform

Equipment

High-impact instruments supporting research

1. DMA Q800 Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis

Manufacturer: TA Instruments

DMA measures the mechanical and viscoelastic properties of materials (like polymers, composites, rubbers, and fibers) as a function of temperature, time, frequency, stress, or environment. It tells you how a material behaves under mechanical stress when temperature changes — basically how stiff, soft, or dampening it becomes.

2. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA Q5000)

Manufacturer: TA Instruments

TGA measures the change in a material’s weight (mass) as it is heated, cooled, or held at constant temperature. This reveals thermal stability, composition, and decomposition behavior of materials.

3. Differential Scanning Calorimeters (DSC 2500)

Manufacturer: TA Instruments

A DSC measures how much heat flow (energy) a material absorbs or releases when it is heated, cooled, or held at a constant temperature. It reveals thermal transitions such as melting, crystallization, glass transition, and curing.

4. AR-G2 Rheometer

Manufacturer: TA Instruments

A rheometer measures the flow and deformation behavior (rheology) of materials under applied stress, strain, or shear. The AR-G2 Rheometer (from TA Instruments) is designed to study viscosity, viscoelasticity, and flow properties of complex fluids and soft solids.

5. 3-Flex Surface Characterization

Manufacturer: Micromeritics

The 3Flex measures the surface area, pore size, and pore volume of solid materials by gas adsorption. It is widely used to study porous materials such as catalysts, carbons, zeolites, ceramics, and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

6. Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD)

Manufacturer: PANalytical

PXRD is used to identify and characterize crystalline materials in powdered (or polycrystalline) form. It tells you about a material’s crystal structure, phase composition, and crystallinity.

7. FTIR Spectrometer (iS20)

Manufacturer: Thermo scientific

FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) is used to identify and characterize materials by measuring how they absorb infrared (IR) light. It provides information about the chemical bonds, functional groups, and molecular structure of a sample.

8. Zeta Potential

Manufacturer: Malvern

Zeta potential measures the surface charge of particles dispersed in a liquid. It indicates how stable a colloidal system (like nanoparticles, emulsions, or suspensions) is against aggregation or settling.

9. Scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Manufacturer: ZEISS

A Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) produces high-resolution images of sample surfaces by scanning them with a focused beam of electrons. It reveals surface morphology, topography, composition, and microstructure at magnifications far greater than light microscopes.