Ultrapermeable Gel Membranes Enabling Superior Carbon Capture.

Membrane technology is rapidly gaining broad attraction as a viable alternative for carbon capture to mitigate increasingly severe global warming. Emerging CO2 -philic membranes have become crucial players in efficiently separating CO2 from light gases, leveraging their exceptional solubility-selectivity characteristics. However, economic and widespread deployment is greatly dependent on the boosted performance of advanced membrane materials for carbon capture. Here, we design a unique gel membrane composed of CO2 -philic molecules for accelerating CO2 transportation over other gases for ultrapermeable carbon capture. The molecular design of such soft membranes amalgamates the advantageous traits of augmented permeation akin to liquid membranes and operational stability akin to solid membranes, effectively altering the membrane's free volume characteristics validated by both experiments and molecular dynamics simulation. Surprisingly, gas diffusion through the free-volume-tuned gel membrane undergoes a 9-fold improvement without compromising the separation factor for the superior solubility selectivity of CO2 -philic materials, and CO2 permeability achieves a groundbreaking record of 5608 Barrer surpassing the capabilities of nonfacilitated CO2 separation materials and exceeding the upper bound line established in 2019 even by leading-edge porous polymer materials. Our designed gel membrane can maintain exceptional separation performance during prolonged operation, enabling the unparalleled potential of solubility-selective next-generation materials towards sustainable carbon capture.

Tunable Ionic Liquid-Water Separation Enabled by Bioinspired Superwetting Porous Gel Membranes.

Selectively wettable porous membranes have been demonstrated to be outstanding energy-efficient materials for use in continuous liquid separation (including separating industrial oils or common organic solvents), in environmental protection, and in the chemical industry. The continuous separation of ionic liquids (ILs), which is important for chemical synthesis and chemical engineering, has been less explored. Herein, we report an on-demand liquid-passed-through strategy for the efficient and continuous separation of ILs from their aqueous solutions via the utilization of bioinspired liquid-infused porous gel membranes. We show how a porous gel film can be used to design functional membranes for reliable separation that is independent of the surface energies of the separated liquids. This tunable IL-water separation strategy can further enable highly efficient and continuous purification and recycling of ILs for use in IL-related chemical processes and is promising for scalable processes.

Anisotropic nanocellulose gel-membranes for drug delivery: Tailoring structure and interface by sequential periodate-chlorite oxidation.

This study investigates periodate-chlorite oxidation as a pretreatment to tailor the surface charge density of cellulose nanofibers employed in open-porous anisotropic hydrogel membranes for transdermal drug delivery. The obtained materials feature high specific surface (≤500 m2 g-1, BET), small average pore size (ca. 40 nm) and tunable surface charge, which are key properties for adsorption and slow release of charged drug molecules. Loading of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) piroxicam (PRX) into the membranes confirmed that the extent of loading is governed by surface charge density and carboxylate group content, respectively, which can be controlled by the oxidation procedure within the range of 0.74-2.00 mmol g-1. Prolonged release of PRX over several hours was observed upon exposure of the loaded membranes to simulated human skin fluid demonstrating the applicability as drug delivery patches.