Facile fabrication of flexible, large-sized organic nanoporous membrane by electrospinning technique based on microporous polymer nanoparticles

Porous organic polymers with well-defined nanoporous structure and superior specific surface area exhibited vigorous materials potentials, especially in various separation cases. While maintaining functional properties and uniform porosity, more applicable fabrications of a large-scale device with improved structural and mechanical flexibility are highly desired. Herein, we report a facile strategy to fabricate a flexible, large-sized nanoporous membrane based on amino-functionalized hypercrosslinked polymer nanoparticles (AHCPNPs) which possesses an excellent CO2 capture capacity and oil-water separation efficiency. The crosslinked PVA/nanoparticles (CPVANPs) membrane, composed of polyvinyl akohol (PVA) and high content of AHCPNPs (80 w%), was prepared via electrospinning technology and post-crosslinking of PVA chain segment by p-phenyldiisocyanate. The CPVANPs membrane with decimete scale displays a well-defined fibre structure, hierarchical porous structure, impressively high mechanical strength (136.8 MPa) with a specific surface area up to 258.3 m2 g-1 and an extremely high capacity of 35.4 w% (8.1 mmol g -1) for CO2 capture. Another advantage is in the aspects of efficient oil-water adsorption and/or separating from high viscosity oils (55.9 g g-1 for castor oil) and emulsified oil (97% SE). The fabrication may exploit a new avenue in designing large-sized, flexible and hierarchical nanoporous membranes for gas and oil-water separation.

Automated summary

A large and flexible nanoporous membrane based on AHCPNPs was fabricated with excellent CO2 capture capacity and oil-water separation efficiency. The membrane exhibits high mechanical strength, large specific surface area, high CO2 capture capacity, and efficient oil-water adsorption and separation.