Nanoporous membranes with tunable pore size by pressing/sintering silica colloidal spheres

We prepared robust nanoporous membranes with controlled area and uniform thickness by pressing silica colloidal spheres into disks followed by sintering. Three different diameters of silica particles, 390, 220, and 70 nm, were used to prepare the membranes with different pore size. In order to evaluate their size-selectivity, we measured the diffusion of polystyrene particles through these membranes. Although pressed silica colloidal membranes do not possess visible order or uniform pore size, they showed size-selective transport. We also demonstrated that pressed silica colloidal membranes can be functionalized via pore-filling. Sulfonated polymer brushes were grown inside the pores via surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization, which resulted in a material with high proton conductivity suitable for fuel cell applications.