Suzana Nunes
Title: Thin film polymeric membranes based on macrocycles and self-assembled channels
First and last name: Suzana Nunes
Affiliation: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Short Biography:
Suzana Nunes is the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs at KAUST and Professor of Chemical and Environmental Science and Engineering. She has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Campinas, Brazil, was a Humboldt postdoc Fellow in polymer physical chemistry at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, and of the Sao Paulo Academy of Science, Brazil. She is the laureate of the 2023 L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Award for Africa and the Arab States recognized for her achievements in chemistry. She is an Associate Editor of ACS Applied Polymer Materials and a Journal of Membrane Science board member. She has decades of experience in polymeric membrane development with more than 290 publications in the field, 7 books, and several patents on new polymeric materials and membranes for sustainable separations.
Abstract:
Interfacial polymerization is one of the most successful methods for membrane development targeting applications in the water sector and in the chemical industry. The introduction of monomers such as macrocycles, zwitterionic units, hydrophilic-hydrophobic functionalities, and self-assembled channels leads to an enhanced selectivity for ions separations and a precise separation of molecules in the nanofiltration range.