Nanofiltration (NF)
is widely used in water treatment; however,
the fabrication of NF membranes with high permeability and selectivity
still remain a challenge. Here, we propose a facile and feasible approach
to design and prepare nanoporous polymeric membranes (NPMs) by using
soluble molecular coordination complexes as pore-forming agents for
the removal of dyes from water. Enhanced porosity and tuned pore sizes
of the membranes were achieved by using several selected coordination
complexes with different compositions and structures. The resulting
membranes display high permeance without compromising rejection compared
with corresponding pristine membranes. Particularly, one of membranes,
with tBu-MOP acting as the pore-forming agent, shows
an optimal separation performance of the water permeance over 209
L/(m2路h路MPa) and a rejection about 98% toward
both methyl blue (MB) and eriochrome black T (EBT). This permeance
is 4.5-fold higher than that in the pristine membrane fabricated without
using any pore-forming agent. This method is expected to extend to
the fabrication of other polymeric membranes with required pore properties
by selecting suitable coordination complexes as pore-forming agents
for different separation applications.
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