Abstract
Nanocomposite membranes have been actively developed in the last decade. The involvement of nanostructures can improve the permeability, selectivity, and anti-fouling properties of a membrane for improved filtration processes. In this work, we propose a novel type of ion-selective Glass/Au composite membrane based on porous glass (PG), which combines the advantages of porous media and promising selective properties. The latter are achieved by depositing gold nanoparticles into the membrane pores by the laser-induced liquid phase chemical deposition technique. Inside the pores, gold nanoparticles with an average diameter 25 nm were formed, which was confirmed by optical and microscopic studies. To study the transport and selective properties of the PG/Au composite membrane, the potentiometric method was applied. The uniform potential model was used to determine the surface charge from the experimental data. It was found that the formation of gold nanoparticles inside membrane pores leads to an increase in the surface charge from −2.75 mC/m2 to −5.42 mC/m2. The methods proposed in this work allow the creation of a whole family of composite materials based on porous glasses. In this case, conceptually, the synthesis of these materials will differ only in the selection of initial precursors.
Highlights
Due to development of modern technologies, the number of studies of ion transport in membranes has increased significantly in recent years
The maximum value of the membrane potential for the Porous glass (PG)/Au composite membrane was near 58 mV, while for the PG membrane it was only 30 mV
We have proposed a novel type of ion-selective Glass/Au composite membrane based on porous glass, which combines the advantages of porous media and promising selective properties
Summary
Due to development of modern technologies, the number of studies of ion transport in membranes has increased significantly in recent years. Membrane technologies have found applications in important fields of science and industry, such as water treatment [1,2]; separation of mixtures and production of pure substances [3,4]; electrochemical energy conversion and storage devices [5,6]; chemical sensors and biosensors [7]; microfluidics and bioengineering [8,9]; etc. Despite the huge potential of membrane applications, there is a number of factors limiting their use, for example, separation capability (rejection), fouling, and flux decline. There are two main ways to affect the membrane’s selective properties: changing the structure of pores (the geometry and physico-chemical properties of the surface) [10,11], including using composite membranes [12]) or external exposure (transmembrane potential, external electric fields [13,14,15], pH of the solution [16], temperature, radiation, etc.).
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