I conducted my Ph.D. study from 2018 to 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Andrea I. Schäfer to investigate the physical interactions between steroid hormone micropollutants and composite membranes that contain carbon-based nano-adsorbents.
From January 2023 to December 2025, I was funded by DFG (SOLEMBA project) to carry out my postdoc in the same group, expanding my work to chemical reactions in photocatalytic membrane reactors.
My main research focus is the fundamental interactions in membrane nanopores. Below are two key examples.
In small pores (below 10 nm in diameter), micropollutants readily interact with the pore walls due to the short separation distances. I revealed that micropollutant ‘adsorption’ (the more accurate word may be stagnation or dampening) was governed by an interplay of the hydrodynamic, adhesive/repulsive, and friction forces acting on the micropollutant molecule. This revelation cannot be achieved with common membranes, but requires the vertically-aligned carbon nanotube (VaCNT) membranes with minimised variability in pore roughness, tortuosity, and chemistry.
However, in larger pores (100−400 nm in diameter), the majority of micropollutants will not stick to the pore walls but diffuse in all the pore space. If the pores are those of a photocatalytic membrane reactor, the micropollutants can react, in the liquid phase, with reactive species generated at the pore walls. I adapted the century-old collision theory—which states that the rate of reaction is controlled by how easy the two reactants can diffuse and collide with each other—to predict the reaction rate in photocatalytic membrane reactors.
Beside the fundamental researches, I have conducted several studies on the membrane performance with real water matrices, and analytical method development. To view the full list of my publications, click here.
Membrane technology is well-established; however, commercial state-of-the-art membranes contain both small pores and large pores (and a great deal of defects). For these membranes, it is difficult to reveal precisely the link between the structure and performance.
A number of materials research groups have been able to fabricate alternative membranes that resolve (to a certain extent) the structural heterogeneity of commercial membranes. Because such membranes can be procurred via collaborations, this research direction opens up to characterise, through both experimental and molecular dynamics approaches, how solutes (ions and small organic molecules) transport through and interact with the membrane pores.
In photocatalytic membrane reactors, the driving force for micropollutant removal is not pressure, but the chemical potential at the pore surface and/or inside the pore space. Compared to batch reactors, the photodegradation performance of membrane reactors is better; however, the full ‘potential’ of these membranes have not been unlocked.
This research direction involves experiments with micropollutant photodegradation in continuous flow. I aim to elucidate the effects of pore adsorption, light penetration, and chemical non-steady-state on micropollutant removal, and how these conditions can be harnessed to improve the photodegradation.
Laser-induced breakdown detection (LIBD) is a robust analytical technique for counting nanoparticles and nanoplastics. The availability of LIBD allows me to design challenge tests with probe nanoparticles, and to look more deeply into the fundamental membrane processes, such as retention, fouling, and deposition–release.
Through this research direction, I aim to reveal the connection between nanoparticle retention and pore size distribution (or the extent of defects) in ultra- and nanofiltration membranes.
