Ice-confined synthesis of highly ionized 3D-quasilayered polyamide nanofiltration membranes

Yanqiu Zhang; Hao Wang; Jing Guo; Xiquan Cheng; Gang Han; Cher Hon Lau; Haiqing Lin; Shaomin Liu; Jun Ma; Lu Shao

doi:10.1126/science.adi9531

Ice-confined synthesis of highly ionized 3D-quasilayered polyamide nanofiltration membranes

Science. 2023 Oct 13;382(6667):202-206. doi: 10.1126/science.adi9531. Epub 2023 Oct 12.

Authors

Yanqiu Zhang^{1

2}, Hao Wang¹, Jing Guo¹, Xiquan Cheng³, Gang Han⁴, Cher Hon Lau⁵, Haiqing Lin⁶, Shaomin Liu⁷, Jun Ma², Lu Shao¹

Affiliations

¹ MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment (SKLUWRE), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
² School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150009, China.
³ School of Marine Science and Technology, Sino-European Membrane Technology Research Institute, Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai 264209, China.
⁴ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Jinnan District, Tianjin 300350, China.
⁵ School of Engineering, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JL, UK.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
⁷ WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University Perth, Perth, Western Australia.

PMID: 37824644
DOI: 10.1126/science.adi9531

Abstract

Existing polyamide (PA) membrane synthesis protocols are underpinned by controlling diffusion-dominant liquid-phase reactions that yield subpar spatial architectures and ionization behavior. We report an ice-confined interfacial polymerization strategy to enable the effective kinetic control of the interfacial reaction and thermodynamic manipulation of the hexagonal polytype (I_h) ice phase containing monomers to rationally synthesize a three-dimensional quasilayered PA membrane for nanofiltration. Experiments and molecular simulations confirmed the underlying membrane formation mechanism. Our ice-confined PA nanofiltration membrane features high-density ionized structure and exceptional transport channels, realizing superior water permeance and excellent ion selectivity.