At AIST, we established the Japan Evaluation Center for CO2 Capture Materials (JEC3M) to accelerate the development and practical deployment of CO2 capture technologies. JEC3M provides a common platform for evaluating absorbents, adsorbents, and membranes, covering fundamental material properties, separation performance, durability, and process–level performance. This article introduces the role of JEC3M and highlights its recent activities, with a particular focus on membrane separation, process assessment, and accelerated durability testing.

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This paper presents the concepts of groundwater resources in Japan. Groundwater is commonly regarded as water stored in geologically controlled aquifers. However, the availability of groundwater resources depends not only on geological aquifers but also on groundwater flow system and their recharge–discharge balance. Groundwater flow also plays a fundamental role in determining the chemical composition of groundwater. Drawdown of groundwater levels caused by anthropogenic pumping generally progresses very slowly on a human timescale because of the large groundwater storage in aquifers. Therefore, long term monitoring is indispensable for the proper management of groundwater resources.

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This review discusses reverse osmosis (RO) as an energy–efficient approach for concentrating and recovering organic solvents from aqueous solutions, with particular emphasis on ultra–high–pressure RO using organosilica membranes. Although RO has an inherent energy advantage over conventional distillation because it does not involve phase change, its application to high–concentration solutions is limited by increasing osmotic pressure. Process design strategies, including multistage operation, internal recycling, and osmotic–pressure–assisted configurations, can mitigate this limitation by controlling the osmotic pressure difference across the membrane. The second half of this review focuses on the development of organosilica membranes for ultra–high–pressure RO. Organosilica membranes possess tunable subnanometer pore structures, high chemical stability, and sufficient mechanical strength for operation under high–pressure conditions. Atmospheric–pressure plasma treatment enables selective densification of the membrane surface, improving organic–solvent rejection while maintaining high water permeability. Optimization of the multilayer membrane structure further enhances RO performance by reducing transport resistance in the intermediate layer and controlling molecular transport and adsorption in the separation layer. Finally, the advantages of ultra–high–pressure operation are discussed from the perspectives of permeate flux, membrane area, and process configuration. Ultra–high–pressure RO can extend the applicable concentration range of RO and simplify the overall process, providing a promising option for energy–efficient and compact organic solvent recovery.

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The demand for ultrapure water (UPW) in semiconductor manufacturing has increased rapidly with the expansion of advanced devices, while global water scarcity has accelerated the use of reclaimed wastewater as an alternative water source. Reclaimed wastewater contains neutral molecules such as urea, silica–related species, boron species, alcohols and low–molecular–weight organics that are difficult to remove by conventional reverse osmosis (RO) membranes because electrostatic exclusion is not effective. Therefore, precise control of the sub–nanometer pore structure in the polyamide active layer is essential. This review summarizes the importance of neutral molecule removal in UPW production, the structure and transport properties of polyamide composite RO membranes, pore–size distribution control based on advanced interfacial polymerization, high–resolution SEM and alcohol permeation analysis, and the performance of newly developed TBW–HR and TBW–XHR membranes. The developed membranes show improved rejection of silica, boron, urea and organic neutral molecules while maintaining practical water permeability. These technologies are expected to contribute to sustainable semiconductor manufacturing and broader water reuse applications.

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Ultrapure water is essential for semiconductor manufacturing. Among various primary water production systems, the RO–EDI system offers a significant advantage by reducing chemical consumption. In this study, we conducted a performance evaluation of a RO–EDI system using our proprietary high–purity EDI, “EDISTATM EDI–XP3”. The results confirmed that the EDI–XP3 achieves a boron rejection rate of over 99.9%, demonstrating both high–level treatment performance and a reduced environmental footprint.

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Circulating human erythrocytes pass capillary network within the whole body, where the smallest microvessel diameter is less than erythrocyte diameter. Therefore, human erythrocytes have developed biconcave disc shape for bending deformation within capillaries under the optimal erythrocyte membrane stability and flexibility. Modern sophisticated clinical technologies have enabled open heart surgeries under the extracorporeal cardiopulmonary circulation, destination therapy of refractory heart failure by mechanical left ventricular assist device implantation, cardiac valvular replacement by open heart surgery or transcatheter technique, and curative therapy of drug-refractory atrial fibrillation by pulmonary vein isolation using pulse field ablation. However, vigorous mechanical power yields unexpected shear stress on circulating blood, and high intensity pulse field ablation causes irreversible electroporation not only in target myocardium but also in adjacent circulating erythrocytes leading to electromagnetic hemolysis. Current high power device techniques in cardiology have a potential risk of iatrogenic intravascular hemolysis mediated by mechanical shear force or high intensity electromagnetic field. This indicates that further improvement of current cardiac devices is required from the viewpoint of blood trauma attenuation and prevention.

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Recent work has established that Laurdan, one of the most widely used probes in membrane biophysics, can adopt two distinct conformations whose populations can be biased by angle–dependent polarized excitation. Existing approaches use band–integrated detection that cannot resolve the wavelength dependence of conformer–attributable spectral changes. Here, we apply wavelength–resolved decay–associated spectroscopy to Laurdan in DOPC and DPPC supported lipid bilayers as a function of tilt angle. DOPC shows distinct angle–dependent spectral features, most notably a bimodal–to–monomodal transition in the short–lifetime amplitude spectrum inaccessible to band–integrated measurements; DPPC shows no resolvable angular dependence, consistent with low gel–phase prevalence of the bent conformer.

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Transdermal immunization is an efficient strategy which offers a promising needle–free alternative to conventional injectable vaccines. However, effective antigen delivery across the skin remains a major challenge due to the presence of the stratum corneum as a barrier. In this study, we report a transdermal patch formulation by using a solid– in–oil (S/O) nanodispersion of ovalbumin (OVA) and a dendritic cell (DC) targeting peptide (HR8) within a pressure sensitive adhesive matrix to enhance immune responses. S/O nanodispersions were prepared using different OVA and HR8 molar ratios and were characterized in terms of particle size and OVA release behavior. Three of them exhibited particle sizes < 500 nm and demonstrated sustained OVA release in vitro. In vivo immunization studies in C57BL/6N mice exhibited that HR8 enhanced OVA–specific immune responses in a concentration dependent manner. The formulations containing OVA and HR8 at a molar ratio of 1 : 3 exhibited approximately five–fold higher OVA–specific immune responses than the corresponding S/O formulation without HR8 peptide. These findings suggest the feasibility of transdermal co–delivery of an antigen and a DC targeting peptide using an S/O patch system as a safe, non–invasive platform for the enhancement of vaccine induced immunity.

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This paper introduces the ORMEC® system, utilizing Osmotically Assisted Reverse Osmosis (OARO) for high–efficiency wastewater concentration. OARO overcomes conventional RO limitations by balancing osmotic pressure, offering a low–energy alternative to thermal evaporation. In Japan’s first commercial application, the system achieved a 78–fold concentration of ammonium sulfate, exceeding 235 g/L. Compared to biological treatment, this system reduced the installation footprint by 62% and cut operating costs by up to 50%. These results establish OARO as a compact, cost–effective, and sustainable solution for industrial wastewater management and resource recovery.

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