Bioinspired Artificial Channel Based Polymeric Membranes

Current state-of-the-art polymeric membranes suffer from permeability-selectivity trade-offs that are especially challenging for Angstrom-scale separations, due to the lack of precisely controlled pore size ( or free volume elements). These intrinsic drawbacks of polymeric materials are limiting for applications in various areas from lab-scale to practical industrial separations, where in general such membranes are widely used. Naturally occurring biological water channels have inspired the development of synthetic biomimetic membranes, on the basis of their unique features such as well-defined pore structures, exceptional molecular transport properties with high water permeability and selectivity, and exquisite self-assembly properties which can provide high pore density per unit membrane area. In this talk, we will discuss the first successful integration of synthetic bioinspired components, which are artificial water channels and amphiphilic block copolymers as synthetic replacements of biological water channels and cellular membrane matrix respectively, into practical polymeric membranes. These membranes showed a sharp molecular weight cut-off profile in the Angstrom-scale molecular size range with significant improvement in water permeability compared to current polymeric membranes.