(18h) Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of Artificial Water Channel Based Polymeric Membranes

Naturally occurring biological protein channels such as aquaporins have recently gained attention as promising materials for high efficiency membranes. This interest is driven by their, high water permeability and selectivity. However, lower than expected improvement in baseline performance, high costs, difficulties in fabrication and achievement of high packing channel density, and low stability associated with biological materials are perhaps holding back the large-scale applications of protein water channel-based membranes. To overcome these challenges, artificial water channels have emerged as an alternative to biological channels which provide stability while maintaining their distinctive molecular transport property. In this talk, an overall strategy of design, synthesis, and characterization of artificial channel based polymeric membrane will be presented. Experimental and simulation data will be presented on peptide-appended pillar[5]arene (PAP) artificial water channels incorporated into poly(butadiene)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PB-PEO) block copolymers as complete synthetic models of biological membranes. These PAP channel-based membranes preserved single channel molecular transport property even at the macro-scale. Also, they presented remarkably enhanced membrane performance compared to other polymeric membranes, in terms of the expected permeability/selectivity trade-off.