Air filtration and Graphene Oxide Membranes — critical practices in materials & materiality

Air filtration and graphene oxide membranes: Art-science creation of sustainable interfaces

Research Team
Dr. Alice Jarry
Dr. Mart Cerruti
Dr. Gabriele Capilli
Jacqui Beaumont
Yiwen Chang
Philippe Vandal
Nima Zakeri

Funding
Concordia Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award

Four filtering scaffolds lined up in a horizontal row.

Graphene Oxide structure under the microscope.

Laboratory with test tubes and pipettes. A gloved hand uses tweezers to pick something up.

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes and Abaca-GO filtering scaffolds. Photos: Jacqui Beaumont, Gabrielle Capilli, Alice Jarry

At the crossroads of design and material science, this research-creation project with McGill University’s Biointerface Lab (dir. Marta Cerruti)
experiments with membranes derived from graphene.

Graphene oxide (GO) is an innovative and sustainable nanomaterial that demonstrates adsorption, nanofiltration and protective properties.

By implementing art-science residencies, creating filtering GO prototypes, and developing public workshops, this interdisciplinary project explores how the concept of ‘filtration’ can give shape to the socio-environmental issues of atmospheric pollution and how the adaptive processes of GO can induce new aesthetic, sensory and critical relationships with the built environment.

Two people in white lab coats, masked with gloves in a laboratory take photos of a specimen in a scientific apparatus in front of them.

Philippe Vandal and Jacqui Beaumont at McGill’s Biointerface Lab. Photo: Alice Jarry