Sub‐10 nm Wide Cellulose Nanofibers for Ultrathin Nanoporous Membranes with High Organic Permeation

Abstract

There are increasing requirements for highly efficient and solvent‐resistant nanoporous membranes in various separation processes. Traditional membranes usually have a poor solvent resistance and a thick skin layer leading to a low permeation flux. Currently, the major challenge lies in fabrication of ultrathin few‐nanometers‐pore membranes for fast organic filtration. Herein, a facile approach is presented to prepare ultrafine cellulose nanofibers for fabrication of ultrathin nanoporous membranes. The obtained nanofibers have a uniform diameter of 7.5 ± 2.5 nm and are homogeneously dispersed in aqueous solutions that are favorable to the fabrication of ultrathin nanoporous membranes. The resulting cellulose nanoporous membranes have an adjustable thickness down to 23 nm and pore sizes ranging from 2.5 to 12 nm. They allow fast permeation of water and organics during pressure‐driven filtration. Typically, the 30 nm thick membrane has high fluxes of 1.14 and 3.96 × 104 L h−1 m−2 bar−1 for pure water and acetone respectively. Furthermore, the as‐prepared cellulose nanofibers are easily employed to produce a novel syringe filter with sub‐10 nm pores that have a wide application in fast separation and purification of nanoparticles on few‐nanometers scale.