The Ultrafast and Continuous Fabrication of a Polydimethylsiloxane Membrane by Ultraviolet‐Induced Polymerization

Abstract

The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane commonly used for separation of biobutanol from fermentation broth fails to meet demand owing to its discontinuous and polluting thermal fabrication. Now, an UV‐induced polymerization strategy is proposed to realize the ultrafast and continuous fabrication of the PDMS membrane. UV‐crosslinking of synthesized methacrylate‐functionalized PDMS (MA‐PDMS) is complete within 30 s. The crosslinking rate is three orders of magnitude larger than the conventional thermal crosslinking. The MA‐PDMS membrane shows a versatile potential for liquid and gas separations, especially featuring an excellent pervaporation performance for n‐butanol. Filler aggregation, the major bottleneck for the development of high‐performance mixed matrix membranes (MMMs), is overcome, because the UV polymerization strategy demonstrates a freezing effect towards fillers in polymer, resulting in an extremely high‐loading silicalite‐1/MA‐PDMS MMM with uniform particle distribution.

High-Performance n-Butanol Recovery from Aqueous Solution by Pervaporation with a PDMS Mixed Matrix Membrane Filled with Zeolite

“…However, various novel membrane fabrication technologies are also available for fast, reproducible, cost-effective, and ecofriendly membrane preparation. ,, For example, microwave and UV-induced curing would allow for simple, rapid, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly membrane preparation processes compared to heat-curing. An UV-induced and solvent-free process has also been proposed with a short curing time (30 s) . Spray-assisted assembly allowed for incorporation of uniformly dispersed ZIF-8 nanoparticles with a high loading of 40 wt %, with the potential for automatic control and scale-up .…”

Spray‐coated PDMS/PVDF composite membrane for enhanced butanol recovery by pervaporation

“…Poly[(3,3,3‐trifluoropropyl)methylsiloxane] PV membrane prepared with water as solvent exhibited a high membrane flux and furfural separation factor 50 . PDMS PV membranes could be prepared with a solventless procedure under UV radiation 51,52 . PDMS/ZSM‐5 composite membranes prepared via solvent‐free twin‐screw compounding and molding method showed a high PSI for pervaporation separation of ethanol aqueous solution 53 .…”

“…50 PDMS PV membranes could be prepared with a solventless procedure under UV radiation. 51,52 PDMS/ZSM-5 composite membranes prepared via solvent-free twin-screw compounding and molding method showed a high PSI for pervaporation separation of ethanol aqueous solution. 53 These new procedures allow for fast, green, and continuous fabrication of separation membranes for industrial applications.…”

Facile Photo and Thermal Two‐Stage Curing for High‐Performance 3D Printing of Poly(Dimethylsiloxane)

“…[ 20 ] Very recently, Qin et al developed a methacrylated PDMS that can realize the ultrafast and continuous fabrication of the PDMS membrane by UV induced polymerization. [ 21 ] Despite of the 3D objects obtained in the previous efforts, there are still some blemishes including the difficulty to build complicated 3D architectures and the requirement of fussy procedures for manually removing supporting bath. [ 22 ] Also, most of them are not compatible to the commercially available PDMSs, and moreover these tailor‐made PDMSs for 3D printing usually exhibited quite poor mechanical performances with the tensile strength of less than ≈0.7 MPa, which is one order decrease, [ 6,20 ] and the elastic modulus of less than 0.9 MPa.…”