Facile construction of gas diode membrane towards in situ gas consumption via coupling two chemical reactions.

ABSTRACT

Controlling the bubbles' behavior on a solid surface is significant for exploring more related applications and thus recently has attracted increased investigations. Based on this, a Janus poly (l-lactic acid) (PLLA) membrane with definitely opposite water wettability in air and opposite bubble wettability underwater was successfully fabricated in this work. The obtained Janus membrane exhibited unidirectional transport for air bubble underwater from the superaerophilic side to superaerophobic side, meanwhile prevented the permeation of water medium from both sides under low pressure. This special membrane was designed to couple two chemical reactions. During the designed chemical reaction process, the feature of bubble unidirectional transport allowed the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced in one reaction system to transport through the resultant membrane into another reaction system, wherein it could be consumed. Meanwhile, the anti-water-permeation function of the membrane guaranteed that the two chemical reactions could be performed independently. We believe that the present research could broaden the potential applications of membranes with super-wetting character for gas bubbles.