MemRE: A Research Tool for Engineers Developing Novel Membrane Materials

How do surface scientists, modellers, chemists and engineers located around Australia share data and access resources in a collaborative project designed to reduce the energy of seawater desalination by 40%? The solution is the Membrane Research Environment (MemRE), a national database of information on membrane surfaces. The database consolidates information on types of membrane and the techniques used to characterise, model and fabricate their structures. The system is accessible through a website (www.membranes.edu.au) and is divided into three sections. The first is a publications repository, storing over 1500 conference proceedings, workshop documents and other 'grey literature' on the development of membrane processes spanning the last 30 years. The second section is a dictionary of membrane properties and the characterisation and visualisation techniques used to measure them. The dictionary has been built with the MediaWiki software and provides an interactive platform for researchers to standardise the techniques they use to characterise newly developed membrane materials. Based on the properties dictionary the third section of the database is a repository of membrane materials, which have been characterised by the techniques described in the previous section. This repository provides a service for storing primary research data, which may be cited in publications. It also provides researchers a way to compare newly developed materials with previously characterised commercial and novel materials. MemRE supports researchers to better manage data across the research lifecycle and to make it available well beyond the scope of individual projects.