Institute of Materials Chemistry and Research, Polymer and Composite Engineering (PaCE) Group, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 42, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Institute of Materials Chemistry and Research, Polymer and Composite Engineering (PaCE) Group, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 42, 1090 Vienna, Austria; School of Engineering, RMIT University, Bundoora East Campus, PO Box 71, Bundoora 3083, VIC, Australia.
Carbohydr Polym. 2021 Feb 1;253:117273. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.117273. Epub 2020 Oct 27.
Membranes and filters are essential devices, both in the laboratory for separation of media, solvent recovery, organic solvent and water filtration purposes, and in industrial scale applications, such as the removal of industrial pollutants, e.g. heavy metal ions, from water. Due to their solvent stability, biologically sourced and renewable membrane or filter materials, such as cellulose or chitin, provide a low-cost, sustainable alternative to synthetic materials for organic solvent filtration and water treatment. Here, we investigated the potential of fungal chitin nanopapers derived from A. bisporus (common white-button mushrooms) as ultrafiltration membranes for organic solvents and aqueous solutions and hybrid chitin-cellulose microfibril papers as high permeance adsorptive filters. Fungal chitin constitutes a renewable, easily isolated, and abundant alternative to crustacean chitin. It can be fashioned into solvent stable nanopapers with pore sizes of 10-12 nm, as determined by molecular weight cut-off and rejection of gold nanoparticles, that exhibit high organic solvent permeance, making them a valuable material for organic solvent filtration applications. Addition of cellulose fibres to produce chitin-cellulose hybrid papers extended membrane functionality to water treatment applications, with considerable static and dynamic copper ion adsorption capacities and high permeances that outperformed other biologically derived membranes, while being simpler to produce, naturally porous, and not requiring crosslinking. The simple nanopaper production process coupled with the remarkable filtration properties of the papers for both organic solvent filtration and water treatment applications designates them an environmentally benign alternative to traditional membrane and filter materials.
膜和过滤器是必不可少的设备，无论是在实验室中用于介质分离、溶剂回收、有机溶剂和水过滤的目的，还是在工业规模应用中，如去除工业污染物，例如水中的重金属离子。由于其溶剂稳定性，生物来源和可再生的膜或过滤材料，如纤维素或几丁质，为有机溶剂过滤和水处理提供了一种低成本、可持续的合成材料替代物。在这里，我们研究了真菌几丁质纳米纸（源自双孢蘑菇）作为有机溶剂和水溶液的超滤膜的潜力，以及混合几丁质-纤维素微纤维纸作为高渗透性吸附过滤器的潜力。真菌几丁质是一种可再生的、易于分离的、丰富的甲壳质替代品。它可以被制成溶剂稳定的纳米纸，孔径为 10-12nm，这是通过分子量截止和纳米金颗粒的排斥来确定的，纳米纸表现出高有机溶剂透过率，使它们成为有机溶剂过滤应用的有价值的材料。添加纤维素纤维来生产几丁质-纤维素混合纸，扩展了膜的功能，使其能够用于水处理应用，具有相当大的静态和动态铜离子吸附容量和高透过率，超过了其他生物来源的膜，同时生产更简单、自然多孔，并且不需要交联。简单的纳米纸生产工艺以及纸张在有机溶剂过滤和水处理应用方面的出色过滤性能，使它们成为传统膜和过滤材料的环保替代品。
