A Versatile Approach Towards the Fast Fabrication of Highly‐Permeable Polymer Mesoporous Membranes. Issue 12 (3rd August 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Rongrong; Zhang, Qiugen; Lin, Zhen; Lv, Ruixue; Gao, Runsheng; Soyekwo, Faizal; Zhu, Aimei; Liu, Qinglin
• Is Part Of: ChemistrySelect. Volume 1:Issue 12(2016)
• Page Start: 3049
• Page End: 3053
• Publication Date: 2016-08-03
• Subjects: mesoporous materials -- separation membranes -- metal hydroxide nanostrands -- size-exclusion separation -- PVDF; Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540.5
• DOI: 10.1002/slct.201600256
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2365-6549

Abstract

Abstract: Polymer mesoporous materials have attracted increasing concerns in various fields especially in membrane separation process. Here we report a versatile approach to fabricate novel highly‐permeable polymer mesoporous membrane for size‐exclusion separation. This approach employs copper hydroxide nanowire thin films as the soluble templates to form a polymer mesoporous separation layer. The membrane formation mechanism is revealed by varying the polymer concentration, the thickness of template films and the size of nanowires. The resultant membranes have a three‐layer sandwich structure, allow fast permeation of water, and exhibit excellent size‐exclusion separation performances. Typically, the 1.39 µm‐thick membrane has a high water flux of 1.17 10 3 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 and rejections of 94.1 % for ferritin molecules. The developed approach have a great potential in the fabrication of polymer mesoporous materials, and produce the membranes have a wide range of applications including in environmental fields. Abstract : Novel highly‐permeable polymer mesoporous membranes are fabricated by a versatile approach that employ a soluble template layer of copper hydroxide nanowires to form a polymer mesoporous layer. The resultant membranes have a three‐layer sandwich structure, allow fast permeation of water, and exhibit excellent size‐exclusion separation performances. The newly mesoporous membranes have a wide range of applications including in life science and environmental fields.