The Research and Postgraduate Centre congratulates Chemical Engineering students, Weng Ying, Peng Hao Yi, and Lau Hui Shen, and their supervisor, Prof. Ir. Dr. Yong Wai Fen from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering and Centre of Excellence for Green and Advanced Technologies in Efficient Separations (GATES) on their recent publication of a research article in Advanced Membranes, an ESCI Q1 journal with the latest Impact Factor of 12.6.

Weng Ying and Peng Hao Yi are co-first authors of the article together with Dr. Feng Fan from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Weng Ying completed her Final Year Project (FYP) and graduated with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering with Honours in August 2024, while Peng Hao Yi and Lau Hui Shen are postgraduate students currently pursuing their PhD in Chemical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Yong Wai Fen. 

This work is the results of an international and interinstitutional collaboration involving Dr. Feng Fan and Dr. Liang Can Zeng from NUS, alongside Dr. Mohamad Rezi Abdul Hamid from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM).

The research, entitled “Engineering fractional free volume in cross-linked MOF-polyimide membranes for gas separation”, reports a facile mixed matrix membrane (MMM), incorporating Christian-Albrechts-Universität (CAU-10-H) Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) within 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphthalic anhydride (6FDA)-durene synthesized using green methods. A small loading of CAU-10-H increased the CO₂ permeability by 98.8% (e.g., from 501 to 996 barrer), with only a slight decrease in CO₂/N₂ selectivity. The optimized 6FDA-durene/CAU-10-H MMM at 3 wt% filler loading cross-linked with ethylenediamine (EDA) for 2 hours demonstrated high CO₂ plasticization resistance up to 30 bar, while exhibiting good gas separation performance (e.g., H₂ permeability and H₂/CO₂ selectivity of 34 barrer and 8.5, respectively), surpassing the 2008 Robeson upper bound. 

Graphical abstract of the work published.

The full article is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advmem.2026.100266.

This work was financially supported by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) (Grant No. FRGS/1/2025/TK-05/XMU/01/1), State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces (PCOSS), Xiamen University (Grant No. 2024X32), and Xiamen University Malaysia Research Fund (Grant Nos. XMUMRF/2024-C14/IENG/0073, XMUMRF/2026-C17/IENG/0088 and ICOE/0033).

Prof. Yong Wai Fen is currently a Professor and Head of Postgraduate Programmes (Chemical Engineering) at the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University Malaysia, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Green and Advanced Technologies in Efficient Separations (GATES). Her research focuses on sustainable green materials and advanced membrane and separation technologies for CO₂ capture, biogas separation, industrial air purification, and water purification.

For more details, refer to: https://sites.google.com/view/wfyongmembraneresearch/home