Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, 710119, China.
Nat Commun. 2018 Dec 21;9(1):5443. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07888-2.
The design and scalable construction of robust ultrathin protein membranes with tunable separation properties remain a key challenge in chemistry and materials science. Here, we report a macroscopic ultrathin protein membrane with the potential for scaled-up fabrication and excellent separation efficiency. This membrane, which is formed by fast amyloid-like lysozyme aggregation at air/water interface, has a controllable thickness that can be tuned to 30-250 nm and pores with a mean size that can be tailored from 1.8 to 3.2 nm by the protein concentration. This membrane can retain > 3 nm molecules and particles while permitting the transport of small molecules at a rate that is 14 orders of magnitude faster than the rate of existing materials. This membrane further exhibits excellent hemodialysis performance, especially for the removal of middle-molecular-weight uremic toxins, which is 56 times higher in the clearance per unit area than the typical literature values reported to date.
具有可调分离性能的稳健超薄蛋白质膜的设计和可扩展构建仍然是化学和材料科学的一个关键挑战。在这里，我们报道了一种具有大规模制造潜力和优异分离效率的宏观超薄蛋白质膜。这种膜是由在空气/水界面处快速形成的类淀粉样溶菌酶聚集而成，其厚度可控，可调节至 30-250nm，且通过蛋白质浓度可将孔径调节至 1.8-3.2nm。该膜可以保留>3nm 的分子和颗粒，同时允许小分子以比现有材料快 14 个数量级的速度传输。该膜还表现出优异的血液透析性能，特别是对中分子量尿毒症毒素的去除，其单位面积的清除率比迄今为止报道的典型文献值高 56 倍。
