Janus membranes, named for the two-faced Roman god, are used as boundaries between oil and water, for example, or to convey gas bubbles into liquids. Their moniker comes from chemical treatment on only one side, leaving two different faces. But current methods of application have made the coatings’ stability and depth of penetration difficult to control.
Argonne researchers used atomic layer deposition (ALD) to thoroughly and uniformly coat a membrane with their chosen compound. The resulting membrane is much more stable than previously possible. Using this technique with the variety of materials available, membranes could be much more precisely tailored to increase efficiency in numerous industrial applications. This could include wastewater treatment, or accelerating the emulsification or demulsification of oil-water mixtures in numerous manufacturing processes.