High-Flux Ultrafiltration Membranes Combining Artificial Water Channels and Covalent Organic Frameworks

Abstract

Artificial water channels (AWCs) have been well investigated, and the imidazole-quartet water channel is one of the representative channels. In this work, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) composite membranes were fabricated through assembling COF layers and imidazole-quartet water channel. The membranes were synthesized by interfacial polymerization and self-assembly process, using polyacrylonitrile (PAN) ultrafiltration substrates with artificial water channels (HC6H) as modifiers. Effective combination of COF layers and imidazole-quartet water channels provide the membrane with excellent performance. The as-prepared membrane exhibits a water permeance above 271.7 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1, and high rejection rate (>99.5%) for CR. The results indicated that the composite structure based on AWCs and COFs may provide a new idea for the development of high-performance membranes for dye separation.

Keywords

• high-flux membranes
• artificial water channels
• COFs
• composite structure