The growing need for highly efficient water purification and bioseparations necessitates innovations in ultra-filtration membranes. Block copolymer (BCP) membranes have emerged as a promising player for efficient ultra-filtration due to their uniform pore sizes and sharp cut-offs. Most of the work in BCP membranes has focused on using cylindrical pores. However, the biological ultrafiltration membranes can have complex architectures which can perform complex separations such as the square, oblique, or hexagonal ultrafiltration pores on the surface layers of the prokaryotic cells.  In this work, we demonstrate novel slit-based membranes using lamellar block copolymers by taking insights from biological membranes. The lamellar BCPs are vertically oriented in one step film casting process by neutral solvent design. The vertically oriented BCPs are converted to slit membranes using a wet etching process. These slit-shaped membranes demonstrate sharp cut-offs for solute filtration. Furthermore, we demonstrate the first example of enhanced separation of 1-D nanomaterials (nanorods) as compared to the 0-D nanomaterials (nanoparticles) using these slit-based membranes, which is facilitated by the shape similarity of 1-D nanomaterials with the nano-slits. Additionally, we show that these slit-shaped membranes show 100 % permeability of similar-sized Lysozyme and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) proteins while retaining the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies up to 70 %, thus making them highly useful for bioseparations. The enhanced permeation of the BSA and Lysozyme is governed by their relative one-dimensional shapes as opposed to the Y-like shape of the IgG proteins. We believe that these slit-shaped membranes will be useful for shape-selective filtrations across a spectrum of applications.

Shape-selective filtration of nanomaterials and proteins using lamellar block copolymer-based slit membranes

Where thousands of chemistry professionals meet to share ideas and advance scientific and technical knowledge. Spring 2023 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch at the end of March.

ACS Spring 2023

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