In his lab at MIT, Smith is designing membranes with tiny pores that can filter tiny molecules based on their size.
There, he continued developing membranes for gas separation, this time using a different class of materials — polymers.
At Berkeley, he learned how make compounds called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) — cage-like molecules that have potential applications in gas separation and many other fields.
Using ladder polymers, which consist of double strands connected by rung-like bonds, the researchers were able to create gas separation membranes that are both highly permeable and very selective.
I am excited for what my team will discover next, and grateful for an opportunity to help solve many important global problems.”

Designing tiny filters to solve big problems