Collection of polymer bubble as a nanoscale membrane

A critical hurdle in membrane fabrication is the threshold thickness, beyond which the artificial membrane becomes impossible. In contrast, biological membranes have a nanoscale thickness, enabling their excellent permeability and remarkably perfect selectivity. We address this challenge by designing a novel bubble spinning process that can produce nanoscale members instead of nanofibers from polymer bubbles. The process herein is to enlarge the bubble so that the thickness of the bubble wall is only a few tens of nanometers. The fragments of the broken bubbles are received on a mesh receptor, and an artificial membrane with nanoscale thickness is obtained. This process sheds a bright light on the biomimetic fabrication of nanoscale membranes. Moreover, although our work focuses on the mechanism, we anticipate that the bubble spinning can be used for large-scale fabrication of natural-inspired extremely thin membranes with good permeability and ideal selectivity, and other functions.

Automated summary

A novel bubble spinning process was designed to produce nanoscale artificial membranes. By enlarging the bubble size, the thickness of the bubble wall can be reduced to several tens of nanometers, resulting in the formation of nanoscale membranes from the fragments of broken bubbles. This process demonstrates great potential for biomimetic fabrication of nanoscale membranes.