Sunshine Iguodala - PhD student (2021-present)

SISunshine Iguodala joined the group as a PhD student since September 2021. She received BSc in Chemistry at the Queen Mary University of London with the First Class Honours. She stayed at QMUL for the MSc study working on the molecular design of room temperature phosphorescence materials for optoelectronic applications, mainly using computational modelling techniques.  Her PhD project will focus on the synthesis of polymer membranes for energy applications. The project is funded by EPSRC ICASE PhD studentship involving collaboration with Schlumberger UK. 

Email: s.iguodala21@imperial.ac.uk

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Brief Introduction to Research

Since the first report in 2004, the emergence of ultra-permeable polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) has attracted substantial interest towards next-generation high-performance membranes for CO2 separation, due to their chemical and structural diversity. By incorporating bulky, rigid contortion centres, polymer chain packing can be disrupted, resulting in high excess free volume and thus, high gas permeabilities. Despite initially demonstrating excellent separation performance, PIMs often suffer from significant physical ageing over time, which greatly limits their long-term effectiveness. Moreover, PIMs have so far largely been assessed as free-standing films, yet thin film composite (TFC) membranes are critical for achieving superior, commercially-viable separation performance as they offer the capability to handle large gas flux demands.  Further exploitation of gas separation performance of PIM membranes and overcoming their persistent challenge of aging are urgently demanded.

To address these issues, Sunshine's PhD project aims to develop new functionalized PIMs and preparation of thin film composite membranes with high gas permeance and high selectivity. Polymers were initially formed into free-standing dense films and successfully developed into TFC membranes, and measured in single gas permeation and mixed gas permeation. The design principles of this work pave the way for creating high-performance and aging-resistant PIM thin films, offering promising solutions for energy-efficient gas separations and broad applications, such as gas sensors. 

Publications

Sunshine Iguodala, et al, Hydrophobic Thin Film Composite Membranes from Fluorinated PIMs for gas separation. In preparation for submission. 

Sunshine Iguodala, et al, Aging-resistant thin-film composite membranes from functionalised polymers of intrinsic microporosity. In preparation for publication. 

Dingchang Yang, Yijie Yang , Toby Wong, Sunshine Iguodala, Anqi Wang , Zhiyu Fan, Charlotte Breakwell, Naiqi Meng, Yanlin Wang, Fabrizia Foglia, Daryl Williams, Nilay Shah, Tongwen Xu, Neil McKeown, Magdalena Titirici, Kim Jelfs, Qilei Song*. Microporous ion-sieving membranes for sustainable lithium extraction. Nature Water, under revision.

Rui Tan*, Hongzhen He, Anqi Wang, Yilin Yang, Sunshine Iguodala, Chunchun Ye, Dezhi Liu, Zhiyu Fan, Mate Furedi, Guanjie He, Stefan Guldin, Dan J. L. Brett, Neil B. McKeown, Qilei Song*. Interfacial engineering of polymer membranes with intrinsic microporosity for dendrite-free zinc metal batteries. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2024,  https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202409322

Conference presentations

S. Iguodala, A. Wang, Z. Fan, N. McKeown, Q. Song. Aging-resistant thin-film composite membranes from functionalised polymers of intrinsic microporosity. EuroMembrane 2024. 

Sunshine Iguodala, Anqi Wang, Zhiyu Fan, Neil McKeown, Qilei Song. Thin Film Composite Membranes from Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity for CO2 Separation. NAMS 2024.