Self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers in the presence of two solvents (oil/water) leads to the formation of lyotropic liquid crystals (LLCs) with the length scale in the range of 2-50 nm, also called mesophases. LLCs can be used as template to synthesize mesoporous polymers. The key point in this soft templating method is to preserve the structure upon polymerization. Using amphiphilic block copolymers with slow dynamics and crosslinking the monomer (oil) phase to arrest the structure, we have preserved the mesostructure upon thermal polymerization in soft templates. Chemorheology is used to study the kinetics of polymerization in soft nanoconfined structure of lamellar and reverse hexagonal LLCs. In addition, we have produced ultrafiltration (UF) membranes from the polymerized LLCs. Fabricated membranes have pore sizes in the range of 3-5 nm and exhibit both excellent fouling resistance and high permeance of water, vastly outperforming conventional UF membranes made through non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS). In addition, the proposed templating method provides flexibility in terms of both the final membrane chemistry and pore size. Therefore, it can be tailored to produce membranes for a wide range of applications including wastewater treatment and food processing.

Polymerization in nanoconfinement of soft templates for making ultrafiltration membranes

2019 Fall National Meeting

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