High-Flux Ultrafiltration Membranes Combining Artificial Water Channels and Covalent Organic Frameworks

Kai Liu; Jinwen Guo; Yingdong Li; Jinguang Chen; Pingli Li

doi:10.3390/membranes12090824

High-Flux Ultrafiltration Membranes Combining Artificial Water Channels and Covalent Organic Frameworks

Membranes (Basel). 2022 Aug 24;12(9):824. doi: 10.3390/membranes12090824.

Authors

Kai Liu^{1

2}, Jinwen Guo^{1

2}, Yingdong Li^{1

2}, Jinguang Chen^{1

2}, Pingli Li^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
² Tianjin Key Laboratory of Membrane Science and Desalination Technology, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.

Abstract

Artificial water channels (AWCs) have been well investigated, and the imidazole-quartet water channel is one of the representative channels. In this work, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) composite membranes were fabricated through assembling COF layers and imidazole-quartet water channel. The membranes were synthesized by interfacial polymerization and self-assembly process, using polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration substrates with artificial water channels (HC6H) as modifiers. Effective combination of COF layers and imidazole-quartet water channels provide the membrane with excellent performance. The as-prepared membrane exhibits a water permeance above 271.7 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1, and high rejection rate (>99.5%) for CR. The results indicated that the composite structure based on AWCs and COFs may provide a new idea for the development of high-performance membranes for dye separation.

Keywords: COFs; artificial water channels; composite structure; high-flux membranes.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.