Chemically tailored microporous nanocomposite membrane with multiple
transport channels for fast solvent permeation
Abstract
Membrane technology is of great significance to realize efficient and
energy-saving molecular separation in petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and
food industries. However, current membrane materials are subject to an
insurmountable trade-off be-tween permeability and selectivity. Herein,
we report on a microporous nanocomposite membrane with multiple
sophisticated transport channels to intensify solvent permeation. To
achieve this goal, we designed polymers of intrinsic microporosity
(PIMs) with precise contorted rejection pores as matrix, and covalent
organic frameworks (COFs) with uniform one-dimensional (1D) channels as
porous nanomaterials. Notably, the selected PIMs and COFs have similar
chemical components and structures, ensuring the interfacial
compatibility between them was perfectly addressed. The prepared
PIMs/COFs nanocomposite membranes showed a significant boost in solvent
permeances (18.1 and 4.2 L m–2 h–1 bar–1 for acetonitrile and
ethanol), while leading to high rejections (>90%) towards
solute molecules of larger than 450 Da. This work paves a promising
avenue for efficient molecular separation.