Treatment of copper-electroplating wastewater by UiO-66-Keratin functionalized PES ultrafiltration membrane.

Secondary interfacial polymerization: a strategy for enhanced permeance and antifouling property in TFC nanofiltration membranes

Fabrication of customizable thin film composite membranes by electrospray assisted interfacial polymerization

The enhancing effect of interfacial polymerization on the corrosion resistance and the preparation of PVDF hollow fiber membranes

Poly(ethylene glycol)-based ultrathin films were prepared using hydrazide-poly(ethylene glycol)12-hydrazide (HZ-PEG-HZ) and 4-[[4,6-bis(4-formylphenoxy)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl]oxy]benzaldehyde (TOB) at the air/dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) interface via interfacial polymerization (IP). The resulting ultrathin PEG-TOB films exhibited asymmetric properties, with lower wettability and roughness on the air side (AS) compared to those on the DMSO side (DS). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results indicate a higher PEG content on the DS. The mechanical properties of the films were studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanoindentation mapping using small (radius, R = 10 nm) and large (R = 29 nm) tips. The AS has a higher elastic modulus than the DS in both air and water. These asymmetries are attributed to preferential enrichment of hydrophobic aromatic groups on the AS and greater exposure of hydrophilic PEG chains on the DS during IP. Additionally, a higher elastic modulus was observed with the large tip in air at small indentations (less than 10 nm), attributed to contact stiffening due to the formation of an interface region upon compression. Furthermore, due to the substrate effect, the elastic modulus increased markedly at larger indentations. The present study provides a new understanding of the asymmetric mechanical properties of ultrathin interfacial films, improving the design of functional thin films.

Pore engineering and charge attenuation for covalent organic framework membranes: A new approach to high-performance molecular-ion separation.

Organic functionalization of highly reactive metal powders is of great significance for chemistry and materials science yet remains a critical challenge. Herein, the interfacial self-polymerization cross-linking strategy based on boroxine chemistry is proposed to construct a functional dynamic covalent network on Al-Li alloy powders. The 4-hydroxyphenylboronic acid (HPBA) monomers undergo spontaneous dehydration and interfacial polymerization to form a trimer structure with boron-oxygen (B-O) dynamic covalent bonds in ethyl acetate solvent under vacuum and thermal conditions. During subsequent desolvation process, the HPBA trimer is further cross-linked through multimer and reactive phenolic hydroxyl groups. Dynamic B-O bonds in the boroxine structure endow the network with intrinsic self-healing capability. DFT calculation and AIMD simulation indicate that boron atoms in HPBA trimer undertake sp3 hybridization to form robust B-O-Al/Li covalent bonds with 200.167 kJ mol-1 adsorption energy. Desolvation can generate a controllable surface morphology for the network to efficiently block corrosive media transport. This organic functionalization strategy endows Al-Li alloy-based composite solid propellants with outstanding mechanical performance (2.342 MPa tensile strength) while improving the combustion heat of Al-Li alloy fuel to 30.648 MJ kg-1 with 3.2% enhancement.

Proton exchange membranes (PEMs) simultaneously with high proton conductivity, strong mechanical strength and low swelling are urgently required for PEM water electrolysis. In this study, we propose a microemulsion-mediated semi-confined method for synthesis of covalent organic framework (COF) nanosheets featured by the concurrent implementation of uniform size, high crystallinity and yield, and excellent scalability, which is virtually impossible for the dominant interfacial polymerization and phase-transfer polymerization methods. The versatility of this method is demonstrated by synthesizing a range of COF nanosheets, including TpPa-SO3H, TpBd-(SO3H)2, and TpTG. The resulting TpBd-(SO3H)2 COF nanosheets are assembled into self-standing COF membranes, achieving the highest proton conductivity (1.76 S cm-1), high mechanical strength (92.1MPa), and negligible swelling ratio (<5%). In practical PEM water electrolysis, the TpBd-(SO3H)2 COF membrane yields a current density of 3.0 Acm-2 at 2.3V and 60°C, outperforming the commercial Nafion membrane (3.0 Acm-2 at 2.7V) under identical conditions. Our work develops an alternative platform method for COF nanosheet synthesis and marks the first application of self-standing COF membranes in PEM water electrolysis, unlocking their great potential for high-efficiency energy conversion.

Commercial polyamide nanofiltration membranes show partial success in removing toxic micropollutants such as haloacetic acids (HAAs) from drinking water. However, these tight membranes suffer from limited selectivity between mineral ions (e.g., Ca2+, Mg2+) and HAAs, causing severe scaling on the membrane surface and loss of beneficial minerals. Herein, we adopted a thermally intensified interfacial polymerization (IP) method to construct a loose and negatively charged polyester membrane. Gallic acid, rich in hydroxyl and carboxyl groups, was used as the aqueous-phase monomer to react with a preheated Isopar G solution of trimesoyl chloride (with an organic-phase temperature up to 125 °C). The elevated temperature facilitates monomer diffusion and accelerates the IP reaction by several orders of magnitude, allowing the formation of the polyester membranes within a short reaction time of merely 10 min under mild pH conditions. The optimal polyester membrane GANF-100 demonstrated >90% rejection for five regulated HAAs, outperforming commercially available polyamide membranes in terms of mineral/HAA selectivity, Ca2+/SO42- selectivity, and antiscaling behavior. This study paves the way for the facile fabrication of polyester membranes toward the effective removal of toxic organic micropollutants.

In-situ vacuum-assisted fabrication of highly selective hollow fiber nanofiltration membranes for removing polyfluoroalkyl substances.

DPD simulation on the formation of polyamide thin-film membrane via interfacial polymerization and experimental verification

Synergy of super-liquid-repellency and nanoscale sieving in a sandwich-architectured janus membrane for stable membrane distillation of hypersaline wastewater.

Fabrication of bioinspired coral reef-like superhydrophobic coating via interfacial polymerization: Towards all-weather high-viscosity oil remediation and de-icing performance.

Multifunctional conductive polyaniline/cotton fabric with integrated EMI shielding and flame retardancy via in situ interfacial polymerization.

Highly perm-selectivity RO membranes prepared by interfacial polymerization with sulfonated copoly(phthalazinone biphenyl ether sulfone) as interlayer

Interfacial polymerization regulated by self-assembled monomer complexes for organic solvent reverse osmosis membranes

Resorcinarene mediated interfacial polymerization for high-performance nanofiltration membrane

Salt-mediated interfacial polymerization for nanostructure tuning of cyclodextrin-based thin film composite membranes

Ultrafast optical nonlinearity in porphyrin-based covalent organic framework membrane via Cu(II)-mediated interfacial polymerization

Engineering polyamide network topology via competitive interfacial polymerization for superior water permeance and ion selectivity