Fabrication of supported mesoporous TiO2 membranes: matching the assembled and interparticle pores for an improved ultrafiltration performance.

We report the fabrication and ultrafiltration performances of an asymmetric composite membrane with a mesoporous TiO2 skin layer coated on a macroporous alumina support. Mesoporous TiO2 was first prepared and deposited on the substrate through a sol-gel process where a ethylene oxide and propylene oxide triblock polymer (PEO-PPO-PEO, P123) was used to modify the properties of the sols and also to introduce assembled pores in the skin layer. The obtained mesoporous TiO2 membrane was characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and nitrogen adsorption. We found that there were two types of wormlike mesopores present in the TiO2 membrane: interparticle and assembled pores. By carefully controlling the sol properties, we made the two types of pores match each other, which means the size of the interparticle pores is close or smaller than that of the assembled pores. This pore-size matching ensures a narrow pore-size distribution and, consequently, a good retention performance of the obtained TiO2 membrane. The pore size of the TiO2 membrane is ca. 6 nm, as revealed by both nitrogen adsorption and dextran separation experiments, and it has a pure water flux of 7.12 L/(m(2) x h x bar) and a cutoff molecular weight of 19 000 Da, which is very attractive for applications in the enrichment and separation of proteins and polypeptides.