Molecularly engineered switchable photo-responsive membrane in gas separation for environmental protection

In recent years, stimuli-responsive materials have garnered interest due to their ability to change properties when exposed to external stimuli, making it useful for various applications including gas separation. Light is a very attractive trigger for responsive materials due to its speedy and non-invasive nature as well as the potential to reduce energy costs significantly. Even though light is deemed as an appealing stimulus for the development of stimuli-responsive materials, this avenue has yet to be extensively researched, as evidenced by the fewer works done on the photo-responsive membranes. Of these, there are even less research done on photo-responsive materials for the purpose of gas separation, thus, we have collected the examples that answer both these criteria in this review. This review covers the utilisation of photo-responsive materials specifically for gas separation purposes. Photo-chromic units, their integration into gas separation systems, mechanism and research that have been done on the topic so far are discussed.