Abstract
The aquaporin-based biomimetic thin-film composite membrane (ABM-TFC) has demonstrated superior separation performance and achieved successful commercialization. The larger-scale production of the ABM membrane requires an appropriate balance between the performance and manufacturing cost. This study has systematically investigated the effects of proteoliposome concentration, protein-to-lipid ratio, as well as the additive on the separation performance of ABM for the purpose of finding the optimal preparation conditions for the ABM from the perspective of industrial production. Although increasing the proteoliposome concentration or protein-to-lipid ratio within a certain range could significantly enhance the water permeability of ABMs by increasing the loading of aquaporins in the selective layer, the enhancement effect was marginal or even compromised beyond an optimal point. Alternatively, adding cholesterol in the proteoliposome could further enhance the water flux of the ABM membrane, with minor effects on the salt rejection. The optimized ABM not only achieved a nearly doubled water flux with unchanged salt rejection compared to the control, but also demonstrated satisfactory filtration stability within a wide range of operation temperatures. This study provides a practical strategy for the optimization of ABM-TFC membranes to fit within the scheme of industrial-scale production.
Highlights
Aquaporins, which serve as water channels in biological membranes [1,2,3], are well known for their ultrahigh permeability to water and near-perfect rejection of any other solute [4,5]
In 2007, Kumar et al proposed that aquaporin-based biomimetic membranes (ABMs) held great potential to be a next-generation membrane that could offer exceptionally high water permeability and selectivity and was capable of breaking the permeability/selectivity trade-off, which has been a persistent challenge for conventional membranes [6]
Some of the methods reported for the fabrication of ABMs require a very tedious fabrication process, which is challenging for the large-scale production of ABM membranes
Summary
Aquaporins, which serve as water channels in biological membranes [1,2,3], are well known for their ultrahigh permeability to water and near-perfect rejection of any other solute [4,5]. A variety of conceptual designs have been proposed and employed to prepare ABMs, such as bio-membrane aperture partition arrays [7,8,9,10,11,12,13], polymer tethered bio-layers [14] and supported bio-membranes with bilayers or vesicles [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22] Some of these designs proved effective to enhance the water flux of resultant ABMs, their long-term performance stability or tolerance to harsh operation conditions were of concern regarding their practical application because of either poor mechanical strength of the resultant membranes or direct exposure of aquaporins to the feed water containing various contaminants. Some of the methods reported for the fabrication of ABMs require a very tedious fabrication process, which is challenging for the large-scale production of ABM membranes
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