Chelation-directed interface engineering of in-place self-cleaning membranes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38437562.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2319390121 and PMC identifier 10945774.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Water-energy sustainability will depend upon the rapid development of advanced pressure-driven separation membranes. Although energy-efficient, water-treatment membranes are constrained by ubiquitous fouling, which may be alleviated by engineering self-cleaning membrane interfaces. In this study, a metal-polyphenol network was designed to direct the armorization of catalytic nanofilms (ca. 18 nm) on inert polymeric membranes. The chelation-directed mineralized coating exhibits high polarity, superhydrophilicity, and ultralow adhesion to crude oil, enabling cyclable crude oil-in-water emulsion separation. The in-place flux recovery rate exceeded 99.9%, alleviating the need for traditional ex situ cleaning. The chelation-directed nanoarmored membrane exhibited 48-fold and 6.8-fold figures of merit for in-place self-cleaning regeneration compared to the control membrane and simple hydraulic cleaning, respectively. Precursor interaction mechanisms were identified by density functional theory calculations. Chelation-directed armorization offers promise for sustainable applications in catalysis, biomedicine, environmental remediation, and beyond.