TY - JOUR
T1 - Silk Fibroin Fibers with In Situ Growth of ZIF-67 Nanoparticles for Membranes with Highly Efficient Nanofluidic Ion Transport
AU - Heidarizadeh, Mohammad
AU - Noorbakhsh, Abdollah
AU - Razmjou, Amir
AU - Sutherland, Duncan Stewart
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2024/8/23
Y1 - 2024/8/23
N2 - Nanofluidic systems due to their unique transport properties play a crucial role in a lot of applications ranging from water desalination to sensors. Over the past few years, considering the simple structure of two-dimensional materials, significant efforts have been devoted to designing synthetic membranes for ion transport. However, expensive fabrication methods such as lithography techniques and some shortcomings such as scale-up difficulty, low pore density, poor mechanical stability, and biocompatibility limit their practical application. Herein, we demonstrate a scalable hierarchically porous membrane with three-dimensional (3D) interconnected nanochannels which is based on the silk fibroin (SF) fiber biomass and modifying the nanofluidic channels by in situ growth of zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) nanoparticles on the fiber surfaces. The ZIF-67/SF membrane with 400 μm thickness is a 3D interconnected network with a large positively charged surface area (54 m2 g-1) containing 1-5 nm pores estimated from density functional theory modeling. Surface-charge-governed ion transport through the nanofluidic channels of the ZIF-67/SF membrane is systematically explored, and characteristic higher-than-bulk ion conductivity was observed at low concentrations (≤10-3 M) of monovalent electrolytes (KCl, NaCl, NaOH, and HCl). Moreover, the ZIF-67/SF is stable and fully functional at elevated temperatures up to 60 °C and maintains its structural and operational properties under acidic and basic conditions.
AB - Nanofluidic systems due to their unique transport properties play a crucial role in a lot of applications ranging from water desalination to sensors. Over the past few years, considering the simple structure of two-dimensional materials, significant efforts have been devoted to designing synthetic membranes for ion transport. However, expensive fabrication methods such as lithography techniques and some shortcomings such as scale-up difficulty, low pore density, poor mechanical stability, and biocompatibility limit their practical application. Herein, we demonstrate a scalable hierarchically porous membrane with three-dimensional (3D) interconnected nanochannels which is based on the silk fibroin (SF) fiber biomass and modifying the nanofluidic channels by in situ growth of zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) nanoparticles on the fiber surfaces. The ZIF-67/SF membrane with 400 μm thickness is a 3D interconnected network with a large positively charged surface area (54 m2 g-1) containing 1-5 nm pores estimated from density functional theory modeling. Surface-charge-governed ion transport through the nanofluidic channels of the ZIF-67/SF membrane is systematically explored, and characteristic higher-than-bulk ion conductivity was observed at low concentrations (≤10-3 M) of monovalent electrolytes (KCl, NaCl, NaOH, and HCl). Moreover, the ZIF-67/SF is stable and fully functional at elevated temperatures up to 60 °C and maintains its structural and operational properties under acidic and basic conditions.
KW - 3D interconnected nanochannel
KW - membrane
KW - nanofluidics
KW - silk fibroin
KW - ZIF-67
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85200821420&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acsanm.4c03394
DO - 10.1021/acsanm.4c03394
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85200821420
SN - 2574-0970
VL - 7
SP - 19481
EP - 19492
JO - ACS Applied Nano Materials
JF - ACS Applied Nano Materials
IS - 16
ER -