Protein‐Based Separation Membranes: State of the Art and Future Trends

Abstract

As an important part of organisms, proteins are of various types, and their functions and properties are different according to their structures. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop new uses of various proteins and their derivatives, increase the reuse value of protein‐based biomass materials, and build a resource‐saving and environment‐friendly society. Protein‐based separation membranes can be used as environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional petroleum‐based separation membrane materials. The separation membrane must have several beneficial properties, such as short transfer path lengths, low transfer resistances, high permeance, and selectivity. In recent years, various forms of protein‐based membranes with nanometer‐scale thickness and unique membrane structures are introduced to enable ultrafast and efficient separation. The rapid development of protein‐based membranes has provided new avenues toward high flux separation membranes construction. In spite of their advantages and potential, there are major issues regarding the protein‐based membrane that are not systematically addressed in the literature. Herein, the representative potential applications of protein‐based materials in membrane material science are concluded, providing emerging technologies and scrutinizing research and development challenges for membrane materials in this field. Finally, some important issues and perspectives for fundamental study and applications are briefly discussed.

The recent advance of precisely designed membranes for sieving

“…The accurate protein structure contributes to the great performance in water permeation. According to previous studies, AQPs can transport up to 3 billion water molecules every second, which is 5-1000 times better than conventional membranes [75,76].…”

Advances in Biohybridized Planar Polymer Membranes and Membrane‐Like Matrices

“…Even with the implementation of β‐barrel protein channels and peptides, AQPs remain the main biological means in water purification‐based biomimetic polymer membranes. AQP's advantage is their capability to transport up to one billion water molecules per second, with a high salt rejection efficiency [147] . Studies that optimized aquaporin‐bearing membranes demonstrated water permeability that is comparable to that of commercially available porous desalination membranes (semipermeable thin‐film composite (TFC) membranes, reverse osmosis (RO)) membranes [148–150] .…”

“…AQP's advantage is their capability to transport up to one billion water molecules per second, with a high salt rejection efficiency. [147] Studies that optimized aquaporin-bearing membranes demonstrated water permeability that is comparable to that of commercially available porous desalination membranes (semipermeable thin-film composite (TFC) membranes, reverse osmosis (RO)) membranes. [148 -150] In planar polymer membranes, fusion of aquaporincontaining (amphiphilic block copolymer-based) vesicles on a porous substrate is a common method for the fabrication of membranes for water purification.…”

Water Cleaning Adsorptive Membranes for Efficient Removal of Heavy Metals and Metalloids

“…Metal oxide such as Al 2 O 3 also increases thermal and mechanical stability [254]. Another approach highlights bionanocomposite membranes with surface-immobilized selective proteins [255,256]. GO-based membranes are covalently combined with bovine serum albumin (BSA) for metal ions detection [255].…”