Today's Tech News: Notable or Not?

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1149674 Summary: By tailoring interfacial charge density and pore wall interactions, the engineered membrane drives specific solute molecules through at rates orders of magnitude faster than conventional porous media without sacrificing selectivity. This advanced separation technology gives chemical processors, resource recovery facilities, and industrial water purification plants a low-energy fabrication framework to replace energy-intensive thermal distillation columns.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1148842 Summary: Decoupling water aeration interfaces using passive self-aerating porous membranes reduces electrical energy consumption in biological wastewater purification by ninety-five percent. The specialized structural layout drives oxygen transfer via natural concentration gradients, eliminating high-power mechanical air compressors and blowers. This passive oxygenation strategy offers energy-efficient infrastructure for municipal and industrial water treatment plants.

https://phys.org/news/2026-09-electricity-ion-membranes.html "3-layered membrane: anodic aluminum oxide substrate containing nanochannels, photoactive carbon nitride layer, positively charged poly(ionic liquid) coating... illuminated under applied electric bias, membrane alters electrical conditions within its nanochannels to differentiate between monovalent/ divalent ions based on hydration shells and charge... favors lithium over magnesium by >200X, potassium over magnesium by >500X... energy-efficient: lithium extraction, chemical purification, desalination"

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-07-3d-printable-material-body-robots.html "artificial tissue-like fabrication not scalable, overcome utilizing emulsification/ centrifugation, jamming billions of membrane-bound water droplets together within minutes forming macro-scale, flexible materials... adding specific proteins to droplets enables selective transport of targeted ions, allowing ionic current conduction for neuromorphic computing or filtering valuable nutrients/ minerals from industrial wastewater... bio-scaffolds, soft robotic actuators, and selective chemical extraction membranes" Related: Printable brain-inspired chips that compute at lightning speed and vanish in minutes https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1143977

https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-interface-tweak-triples-graphene-oxide.html "interfacial layer given more uniform/ optimized nano-channels, stopping restacking/ misalignment creating dead ends for water molecules... smoothed interface glides water through atomic-scale gaps with significantly less friction... membrane still filters out >99% salt ion/ organic contaminants... reinforces membrane's mechanical bond preventing swelling/ degrading with long water submersion, graphene oxide much cheaper than graphene, less pressure/ electricity in desalination/ purification plants" Related: Unlocking the chemical blueprint for next-generation water filters https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1129898 Energy Recovery Technology to Help Deliver Water Security to One Million People Across Saudi Arabia's Mecca, Al-Baha, and Asir Regions https://www.aol.com/articles/energy-recovery-technology-help-deliver-120000000.html

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-ultra-thin-polymer-membranes-enable.html "irregular/ disordered pore structures leads to trade-off between selectivity/ permeability... overcome using interfacial 3-μm-thick polymeric membrane cross-linking separation layer on top of polymeric supporting layer... enables 82.38% vanadium flow battery energy efficiency, 300 mA/cm2 current density... tune separation layer  thickness/ morphology by varying cross-linking time/ types of agents... precise angstrom-scale ion sieving, high ion selectivity/ low resistance... membrane-based separation, energy storage" Related: Targeted atomic disorder boosts battery charging speed and long-term stability https://techxplore.com/news/2025-07-atomic-disorder-boosts-battery-term.html Piersica Unveils PIRION, a Breakthrough Polymer Technology Engineered for the Battery Industry https://www.nacleanenergy.com/energy-storage/piersica-unveils-pirion-a-breakthrough-polymer-technology-engineered-for-the-battery-in...

  https://news.mit.edu/2025/new-approach-could-fractionate-crude-oil-using-less-energy-0522 "fractionation into gasoline, diesel, heating oil accounts for 1% world’s energy use... instead of separating components by boiling points, filters crude oil components by molecular size... resistant to swelling, scalable thin film manufactured using common technique, 90% less energy use... reverse osmosis water desalination polymers modified by changing bond connecting monomers from amide bond to more rigid/ hydrophobic imine bond... also introduced triptycene monomer... high permeance and excellent selectivity" Related: Alternative carbon carrier technology could improve both oil production and carbon storage https://techxplore.com/news/2025-08-alternative-carbon-carrier-technology-oil.html Polymer membrane separates crude oil at room temperature https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1133507 Next‑generation membranes can refine crude oil using under half the energy of distillation...