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Bioinspired membranes for multi-phase liquid and molecule separation

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Abstract

Water pollution is a serious problem around the world. It causes the lack of clean drinking water and brings risks to human health. Membrane technology has become a competitive candidate to treat the contaminated wastewater due to its high separation efficiency and low energy consumption. In this review, we introduce the recent development of several kinds of bioinspired separation membranes, involving the membrane design and applications. We emphasize the multi-phase liquid separation membranes inspired from nature with special wettability applied for oil/water separation, organic liquids mixture separation, and emulsion separation. After separating multi-phase liquids using these membranes, small molecule pollutants still exist in single-phase liquid. Therefore, we also expand the scope to small molecule-scale separation membranes, such as the nacre-like graphene oxide separation membrane and other nanofiltration membranes. Summary and outlook concerning the future development of separation membranes are also introduced briefly.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21433012, 21774005, 21374001, 21503005, 51772010), the National Instrumentation Program (2013YQ120355), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University of China, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities of China (B14009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Energy Materials and Devices, School of Chemistry, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Jingchong Liu, Zhimin Cui, Lanlan Hou, Dianming Li, Yuan Gao, Li Shuai, Jing Liu, Nü Wang & Yong Zhao

  2. i-Lab, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, and CAS Key Laboratory of Nano-Bio Interface, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Jian Jin

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  1. Jingchong Liu
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  2. Zhimin Cui
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  3. Lanlan Hou
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  4. Dianming Li
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  5. Yuan Gao
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  6. Li Shuai
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  7. Jing Liu
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  8. Jian Jin
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  9. Nü Wang
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  10. Yong Zhao
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Correspondence to Nü Wang or Yong Zhao.

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Liu, J., Cui, Z., Hou, L. et al. Bioinspired membranes for multi-phase liquid and molecule separation. Sci. China Chem. 62, 14–23 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-018-9332-2

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