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.

The continuous fabrication of a high-performance triboelectric nanogenerator by a roll-to-roll process

“…In addition, benefiting from the advantages of solvent-free and ambient conditions, UV polymerization is a significantly promising method and opens a new avenue for achieving continuous fabrication. 38 Therefore, the PDMS layer has been made through the ultrafast UV crosslinking reaction, and a continuous scale preparation method by a roll-to-roll process for high-performance TENGs has been developed. Thus, by grafting the fluorine-containing functional group into the backbone of PDMS, the charge-accepting characteristics of PDMS can be improved.…”

Green Techniques for Rapid Fabrication of Unprecedentedly High-Performance PEO Membranes for CO2 Capture

“…Subsequently, the photoinitiator was dissolved into the above solution. The prepared solution with a controlled thickness was sandwiched between two transparent glass slides and irradiated with UV light, providing a transparent and flexible membrane termed BPM. ,, Notably, the process took merely 100 s, so the membrane can be fabricated on a large scale with the assistance of a movable platform . More importantly, the whole fabrication step is an additive manufacturing process without any additional solvent, that is, no waste of materials, highlighting the green character of the fabrication technique. , …”

“…15,16,18 Notably, the process took merely 100 s, so the membrane can be fabricated on a large scale with the assistance of a movable platform. 27 More importantly, the whole fabrication step is an additive manufacturing process without any additional solvent, that is, no waste of materials, highlighting the green character of the fabrication technique. 13,28 3.2.…”

Controllable hydrogen-bonded poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) membranes for ultrafast alcohol recovery

“…11 A polymeric membrane is considered as the ideal and popular membrane type because of the good membrane formation ability, low cost, excellent mechanical strength and chemical stability. 12,13 For bio-alcohol recovery, the most common polymeric membrane materials include poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), [14][15][16] poly(1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne) (PTMSP), [17][18][19] poly (ether-block-amide) (Pebax), [20][21][22] polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1), 23,24 etc. Among them, the PDMS membrane is the most popular species by virtue of its good organophilicity and hydrophobicity, excellent mechanical strength and chemical stability, and high separation factor; 25 however, its high crosslinking degree generally restricts the molecular chain flexibility and therefore gives relatively low permeation flux.…”

“…Among them, the PDMS membrane is the most popular species by virtue of its good organophilicity and hydrophobicity, excellent mechanical strength and chemical stability, and high separation factor; 25 however, its high crosslinking degree generally restricts the molecular chain flexibility and therefore gives relatively low permeation flux. 15 PTMSP membrane, a glassy polymer with a large free volume, generally exhibits better alcohol recovery performance than PDMS membrane, but its physical and/or chemical aging issue over time restricts the practical application. 26 In addition, Pebax membrane with inferior organophilicity and hydrophobicity usually exhibits a relatively low permeation flux and separation factor, [20][21][22] while PIM-1 membrane with pore structure generally shows high permeation flux but sacrificed separation factor, and also has physical and/or chemical aging issues.…”