Ultrafiltration membranes are widely used in the biotechnology, food, and water treatment industries. These membranes are generally made of various different polymers and vary widely in their surface chemistry properties. Recently, we have developed a group of chiral membranes that could allow for selective chiral separations and reduced fouling. Three chiral monomers, (S) and (R) forms for each, were synthesized in order to determine their effects on protein separations and fouling. Almost all amino acids of proteins are of one specific stereoisomeric form, <i>i.e.,</i> the (S) form. These were used to create a new class of chiral membranes by covalently attaching them to the surface of poly (ether sulfone) (PES) membranes. Surface chirality can be used in addition to the classical separation parameters of membranes such as pore size, charge, trans-membrane pressure, and surface wettability.<br/><br/>Currently, we are synthesizing a chiral library utilizing the 20 natural amino acids and a common linker containing a methacrylate or methacrylamide and various different repeated PEG units (n = 1 - 6) to graft the amino acids to the PES surface. We then utilize a high-throughput platform with an Atmospheric Pressure Plasma (APP) polymerization system to activate irradiation-sensitive commercial PES membranes. The synthesized chiral monomers are then grafted and polymerized from the membrane surface and evaluated. These chiral surfaces are tested using various proteins of different molecular weights, such as bovine serum albumin (67 kDa), ovalbumin (45 kDa), green fluorescent protein (27 kDa), and cytochrome c (13 kDa). Steric effects in addition to chain length and functionality should all be critical when the chiral surface interacts with the protein. We speculate that chiral membranes could have important implications in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries when only one stereoisomer is desired from a racemic mixture.

Development of chiral membranes for purifying chiral feed streams

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.