Polyamide nanofilms with Janus microporous framework for sustainable solvent filtration

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Chemical Engineering
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Scalable fabrication of polymer membranes with tunable permselectivity and chemical stability is essential for sustainable organic solvent nanofiltration.
• Current methods face challenges in achieving both high performance and durability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a scalable interfacial polymerization method for creating sub-20 nm fluorinated polyamide nanofilms.
• To engineer membranes with synergistic control over permselectivity and chemical stability for organic solvent nanofiltration.

Main Methods:

• Bifunctional molecular engineering strategy involving interfacial polymerization.
• In situ incorporation of noncoplanar contorted segments with fluorine-rich pendants.
• Experimental characterization and molecular simulations.

Main Results:

• Fabrication of sub-20 nm fluorinated polyamide nanofilms with a Janus microporous framework.
• Achieved high crosslinking density and rigid-flexible, hydrophilic-hydrophobic duality.
• Demonstrated enduring chemical stability, high solvent permeance, and low molecular weight cutoff.

Conclusions:

• The developed Janus structure enables simultaneous control over polar and nonpolar organic solvent transport.
• The membranes exhibit performance rivaling state-of-the-art, offering a promising paradigm for sustainable organic solvent nanofiltration.
• This approach facilitates the development of high-performance membranes for energy-intensive filtration across a wide solvent polarity range.