2023 AIChE Annual Meeting

(557g) Pore Size-Controllable, Ultrathin Polymeric Membrane Assembled at the Oil/Water Interface for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Separation

Authors

Lee, J. - Presenter, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Kim, B., University of Pennsylvania
Kim, S., Northwestern University
In this talk, we present a novel extraction-based membrane system with an ultra-thin polymeric monolayer. First, we form a nanometer-thick polymeric monolayer composed of end functionalized polymers and metal ions at an oil/water interface, and the monolayer can sharply separate small molecules in organic solvents with a molecular cutoff of <500 Da. The pore size of the ultra-thin polymeric membrane is set by the free volume of a polymer, and thus controlled by the surface polymer concentration. The polymer membrane can also be spontaneously formed at water droplets dispersed in an oil phase. Then, the water droplets can be assembled into a packed column for the extraction of the small molecules from the continuous oil phase. Large molecules rapidly pass through the micron-sized interstitial void space between water droplets while only small molecules are extracted into the water droplets through a thin polymeric membrane. This novel system design makes possible ultra-fast and highly selective separation of molecular mixture of pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in cyclohexane with selectivity >100, and permeance >400 L·m-2·h-1·bar-1.