School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo　Research Center for Water Environment Technology

The Awardee

Yu Tosaka (M2), Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Engineering

The Awarded Presentation

Yu Tosaka, Shotaro Torii, Takeshi Sakamoto, Hiroyuki Katayama and Takashi Kato (2020) Development of Nanostructured Liquid-Crystalline Membranes for Efficient Removal of Viruses Regardless of Their Charge, WET2020-Online (Nov 7-8).【The WET Excellent Presentation Award】

About the Awarded Research

Recently, the threat of pathogenic microorganisms such as viruses has been increasing. In order to remove pathogens and obtain safe water, we have prepared nanostructured liquid-crystalline membranes with ordered nanochannels by utilizing the self-assembly of liquid crystalline molecules. They have achieved a high virus rejection rates over 99.9999%.
In this study, we prepared mutated viruses with different surface charges and evaluated the virus removal performance of the membranes. As a result, nanostructured liquid-crystalline membranes removed mutated viruses and original viruses more than 99.99%. This indicates that the nanostructured liquid crystalline-membrane is effective against viruses with various surface charges.

Impression & Future Plan

I am really grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Takashi Kato, who has always given me a lot of guidance, Prof. Hiroyuki Katayama, who has helped me in my joint research projects, and all the people who have helped me with my work and let me enjoy my free research life as a bachelor and master student. I will never forget appreciation for all the people who have supported me up to this point, and I hope to have no regrets as a student in the master's program, and the doctoral course which will start from next year.