A smart and responsive crystalline porous organic cage membrane with switchable pore apertures for graded molecular sieving
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Membranes with high selectivity offer an attractive route to molecular separations, where technologies such as distillation and chromatography are energy intensive. However, it remains challenging to fine tune the structure and porosity in membranes, particularly to separate molecules of similar size. Here, we report a process for producing composite membranes that comprise crystalline porous organic cage films fabricated by interfacial synthesis on a polyacrylonitrile support. These membranes exhibit ultrafast solvent permeance and high rejection of organic dyes with molecular weights over 600 g mol-1. The crystalline cage film is dynamic, and its pore aperture can be switched in methanol to generate larger pores that provide increased methanol permeance and higher molecular weight cut-offs (1,400 g mol-1). By varying the water/methanol ratio, the film can be switched between two phases that have different selectivities, such that a single, 'smart' crystalline membrane can perform graded molecular sieving. We exemplify this by separating three organic dyes in a single-stage, single-membrane process.
Date Issued
2022-01-10
Date Acceptance
2021-11-11
Citation
Nature Materials, 2022, 21, pp.463-470
ISSN
1476-1122
Publisher
Nature Research
Start Page
463
End Page
470
Journal / Book Title
Nature Materials
Volume
21
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35013552
PII: 10.1038/s41563-021-01168-z
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Technology
Chemistry, Physical
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Physics, Applied
Physics, Condensed Matter
Chemistry
Materials Science
Physics
FATTY-ACIDS
SOLVENT NANOFILTRATION
SEPARATION
TECHNOLOGY
PURIFICATION
SIMULATIONS
SELECTIVITY
FRAMEWORKS
DESIGN
FILMS
Membranes, Artificial
Porosity
Solvents
Water
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2022-01-10