Self-Organized Implanting of Micro/Nanofiltration Membranes in Advanced Flow μ-Reactors

A low-cost, simple, and one-step synthesis of cellulose acetate nanoparticles (CANPs) has been invented using a continuous-flow advanced microfluidic reactor. For this purpose, the CANPs are self-organized inside a cross-junction microchannel by flowing cellulose acetate (CA) dissolved in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) through the axial inlet and the antisolvent water through the pair of side inlets. The preferential solubility (insolubility) of DMF (CA) to antisolvent water stimulates the in situ synthesis of CANPs at the DMF/water miscible interface following a phase-inversion process. Subsequently, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, and microfiltration membranes of different porosities and permeabilities have been prepared from freshly synthesized CANPs. The porosity, thickness, transparency, and wettability of the membranes are tuned by varying the thickness of the membranes, size of the nanoparticles, and the porosity of the membranes. The as-synthesized CANPs show enhanced bactericidal properties with and without loading an external drug, curcumin, which has been validated against the Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa species. Importantly, enabling a pulsatile flow during the synthesis, the CANPs are embedded as nanofiltration membranes inside the microfluidic channel. Such microfluidic devices have been used to separate a corrosive dye from water. Concisely, the proposed in situ synthesis of CANPs in the continuous-flow microfluidic reactors, their usage for fabricating membranes with tunable wettability and transparency, and their subsequent integration into the microfluidic channel show the potential of the invention for a host of applications related to health care and environmental remediation.