Vapor Phase Fabrication of Hydrophilic and Hydrophobic Asymmetric Polymer Membranes

The fabrication of asymmetric polymer membranes via vapor phase deposition is demonstrated. In this solventless process, the dense layer is deposited first and then the porous layer is subsequently deposited onto the dense layer. A variety of functional polymer membranes can be produced by varying the precursor molecules. The functionality of the dense and porous layers can be independently tailored to be either hydrophobic or hydrophilic, resulting in membranes that are fully hydrophilic, fully hydrophobic, or asymmetric in both structure and chemical functionality. The thickness of both the porous and dense layers can be separately tuned by controlling the deposition time.