Contact
    Start Publications Highly tunable structure-by-design polymer brush membranes for ...
    ←  Publication Finder
    QSense

    Highly tunable structure-by-design polymer brush membranes for organic solvent nanofiltration

    Year: 2023

    Authors: Ramesh, Pranav; Sorci, Mirco; Sengupta, Bratin; Karla, Surya; Hao, Zerui; Yu, Miao; Kilduff, James; Belfort, Georges

    Keywords: Crosslinked brush membranes; Hydrophilic grafting; Organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN); Polymerization; Solvent stable; Solvent treatment; Surface modification

    Synthetic polymeric nanofiltration membrane processes offer an alternate low-energy option to energy-intensive distillation to fractionate similar size organic solvents for chemical, petroleum, food and biotechnology industries. Here, we synthesize and test a new class of structure-by-design hydrophilic polymeric brush membranes, that address the limitations of commercial polymer membranes, are tunable and exhibit commercially relevant filtration performance. Because these brush membranes are grafted by Single Electron Transfer-Living Radical Polymerization (SET-LRP) and replace statistically random phase inversion or interfacial polymerization used for synthesizing commercial polymer membranes, their porous structure can be remodeled by varying their morphology and chemistry. We graft hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) brush structures with short and long crosslinkers, demonstrate two competing phenomena - pore stiffening and opening - and obtain high selectivity at reasonable permeability for commercially relevant methanol/toluene separation. This new class of stable, tunable, and scalable membranes offers exciting opportunities to reduce energy for separation of organic solvents.
    View publication