Manchester leads the way in graphene membrane research

10 Apr 2013

Our graphene researchers have been awarded a £3.5m funding boost that could bring desalination plants, safer food packaging and enhanced disease detection closer to reality.

Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the research focuses on membranes that could provide solutions to worldwide problems; from stopping power stations releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, to detecting the chemical signals produced by agricultural pests. 

Graphene - the world’s thinnest, strongest and most conductive material, with the potential to revolutionise a huge number of diverse applications; from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips - was first isolated in 2004 at The University of Manchester by Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov. Their work earned them the 2010 Nobel prize for Physics.