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If we want to get our planet healthy, despite a population in excess of 7 billion, we have to recycle more. Membranes are indispensable to this, in part because they can separate and purify gases and liquids \u2013 like clean drinking water. Membrane professor Kitty Nijmeijer (1972) moved her research from TU Twente to Eindhoven University of Technology to help make the world a more sustainable place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trump <\/span><\/strong> <\/p>\n “We have only one planet but our current western lifestyle requires three to five planets. Recycling materials is a pure necessity to prevent the exhaustion of our Earth.\u201dKitty Nijmeijer, Professor Membrane Materials and Processes, TU\/e<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Separation processes Concentration<\/span><\/strong> A relatively new and growing problem on which Nijmeijer is working concerns micro-pollutants, like medicines, hormones, drugs and pesticides, in drinking water. Currently these substances are only present in our water in very low concentrations but if we don\u2019t do anything, these will ultimately become a health risk. These substances can\u2019t yet be removed, but Nijmeijer hopes that the new membranes being developed by her group will be able to achieve this within five years.<\/span><\/p>\n Blue energy<\/span><\/strong> <\/p>\n Porous straws The membranes produced are shaped like long, thin straws containing microscopically small holes in their walls that allow only clean water through and keep out bacteria and dirt. In the lab the researchers can work on the membrane material at a molecular level and so very precisely determine the size of the holes, which then determine which substances are allowed through the membrane. Nijmeijer: \u201cThat is one of the great things about my field of work; developing membranes requires insight and understanding, and the application makes it very tangible at the same time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Source: Press Release TU\/e, Picture: Rob Stork<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If we want to get our planet healthy, despite a population in excess of 7 billion, we have to recycle more. Membranes are indispensable to this, in part because they can separate and purify gases and liquids \u2013 like clean drinking water. Membrane professor Kitty Nijmeijer (1972) moved her research from TU Twente to Eindhoven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[10370,6278,132,2519],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-90489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-kitty-nijmeijer","tag-sustainability","tag-tue","tag-tue-en"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Bart Brouwers","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/brewbart\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Kitty Nijmeijer<\/a>","Sustainability<\/a>","TU\/e<\/a>","TU\/e<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Kitty Nijmeijer<\/span>","Sustainability<\/span>","TU\/e<\/span>","TU\/e<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 9 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 18, 2017","modified":"Updated on April 18, 2017"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 18, 2017 3:24 pm","modified":"Updated on April 18, 2017 3:24 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=90489"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=90489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAl Gore, with his book An Inconvenient Truth, was a major inspiration for the chemical engineer Nijmeijer, and Trump\u2019s comments about climate change she regards as \u201cshocking\u201d in the same way that companies like Exxon Mobil undermine climate science. This typifies the professor Membrane Materials and Processes, Kitty Nijmeijer, whose research is focused on one thing: to give the Earth a sustainable future. She is keen for her work to contribute to a circular economy in which \u201cclosing cycles\u201d is a leading theme. For instance, by making waste a resource, because \u201cI believe that we are responsible for a clean and sustainable world. We have only one planet but our current western lifestyle requires three to five planets. Recycling materials is a pure necessity to prevent the exhaustion of our Earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nHer work on membrane technology for the required separation processes is a seamless fit. \u201cNearly everything we eat and drink, all the products we use, have undergone one or more separation stages,\u201d Nijmeijer explains. \u201cAnd it is the separation processes that are responsible for the lion\u2019s share of the energy consumption in the chemical industry. Membrane technology is a mild form of separation technology that uses little energy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
\nHer group is working on developing new membranes, improving the separation characteristics, extending the durability, and on generating higher yields of these membranes for sustainable solutions. The goal in all this is always to \u2018upcycle\u2019 \u2013 to make a high-grade resource from residual waste \u2013 since \u2018downcycling\u2019 \u2013 making a lower-grade product (like cardboard from old paper) \u2013 ultimately results in waste again. Nijmeijer sees opportunities in the food, manure or wastewater industry, for example, where a lot of diluted waste occurs that the use of membrane technology could make an interesting business proposition through the concentration and selective recovery of valuable components.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMembranes can play a key role on many other sustainability fronts. Like CO2<\/sub>capture and water vapor recovery in power plants, generating electricity from the difference in saline concentration between saltwater and freshwater (\u2018blue energy\u2019), reprocessing and purifying biogas so that it can be used in the gas grid, and making basic chemicals or fuels from CO2<\/sub> using solar energy. These are all areas in which Nijmeijer and her group are working.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nNijmeijer moved from the University of Twente to TU\/e at the beginning of 2016. \u201cBecause Eindhoven is stronger in both polymers and process technology, both cornerstones in developing future membrane technology,\u201d she points out. Together with her colleague Dr. Zandrie Borneman, she is building a new research group\u00a0in Eindhoven, Membrane Materials and Processes (MM\/P) <\/a>\u2013 now 15 strong \u2013 and creating a brand new, 1.7 million euro laboratory that opened on 7 April. Here Nijmeijer and her team will be able to vary and influence with great precision the properties of polymer membranes and give them exactly the characteristics they need for new, sustainable applications, and test whether they can actually do what they are intended to do.<\/span><\/p>\n