NEW YORK: A newly designed porous membrane, so thin that it's invisible edge-on, might revolutionise the way doctors and scientists manipulate objects as small as molecules. The 50-atom thick filter can withstand surprisingly high pressures and may be a key to better separation of blood proteins for dialysis patients, speeding ion exchange in fuel cells and purifying air and water at the nanoscopic level. "It's amazing, we have a material as thin as some of the molecules it's sorting, and riddled with holes - but it can withstand enough pressure to make real-world nano-filtering a practical reality," said Christopher Striemer...
