Exemplar Mixtures for Studying Complex Mixture Effects in Practical Chemical Separations

Materials and processes for chemical separations must be used in complex environments to have an impact in many practical settings. Despite these complexities, much research on chemical separations has focused on idealized chemical mixtures. In this paper, we suggest that research communities for specific chemical separations should develop well-defined exemplar mixtures to bridge the gap between fundamental studies and practical applications and we provide a hierarchical framework of chemical mixtures for this purpose. We illustrate this hierarchy with examples, including CO2 capture, capture of uranium from seawater, and separations of mixtures from electrocatalytic CO2 reactions, among others. We conclude with four recommendations for the research community to accelerate the development of innovative separations strategies for pressing real-world challenges.