Self-Assembled Hybrid Isoporous Membranes with Enhanced Antifouling and Antibiofouling Capabilities

Isoporous membranes fabricated from block-copolymers (BCP) represent a new category of highly porous membranes comprising densely packed hollow nanochannels with uniform pore size having capabilities to surpass traditional permeability-selectivity trade-off. The unique morphological features of isoporous membranes have summoned significant attention in various applications ranging from molecular separation, microfluidics, tissue engineering, sensors and drug delivery [Warkiani et al. (2013)]. Recently, a non-equilibrium method combining self-assembly combined with scalable non-solvent induced phase separation (SNIPS) was proposed for fabrication isoporous membranes resulting in membranes with high permeability and selectivity [Peinemann et al. (2007)]. However, fouling remains a formidable challenge for such high molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) membranes which impedes their practical separation based. To this end, hybrid membranes have been demonstrated as an alternative to avoid fouling together with achieving optimal permeability-selectivity trade-off. Inspired by extraordinary properties of graphene oxide (GO) particularly their ability to form fouling-resistant nanosheets and freedom for further chemical functionalization, we reasoned that marrying BCP with functionalized GO could be an attractive approach towards performance enhancement of isoporous membranes [Lu et al. (2017)]. Herein, we present a rational methodology of facile fabrication of fouling-resistant isoporous membranes which proceeds through a functionalized GO and BCP co-assembly, referred to as Co-SNIPS.

References:

Lu X., Feng X., Werber J. R., Chu C., Zucker I., Kim J.-H., Osuji C. O., Elimelech M., Enhanced antibacterial activity through the controlled alignment of graphene oxide nanosheets, PNAS 114 (2017) 9793-9801.

Peinemann K.-V., Abetz V., Simon P. F. W., Asymmetric superstructure formed in a block copolymer via phase separation, Nat. Mater., 6 (2007) 992-996.

Warkiani M. E., Bhagat A. S., Khoo B. L., Han J., Lim C. T., Gong H. Q., Fane A. G., Isoporous micro/nanoengineered membranes, ACS Nano 3 (2013) 1882-1904.