School of Bioengineering, Engineering Research Center of Application and Transformation for Synthetic Biology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
Intensive Care Unit, Biomedical Research Center, Shenzhen Institute of Translational Medicine, Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shenzhen University, Guangdong Key Laboratory for Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging, National-Regional Key Technology Engineering Laboratory for Medical Ultrasound, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shenzhen University Medical School, Shenzhen 518060, China.
Nanoscale. 2023 Jun 23;15(24):10412-10422. doi: 10.1039/d3nr01632c.
Aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays have been widely used in the preparation of polymer composites. CNT arrays are commonly prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) in a high temperature tubular furnace, and the areas of the aligned CNT/polymer membranes prepared are relatively small (<30 cm) due to the limitation of the inner diameter of the furnace, which limits its practical application in the field of membrane separation. Herein, the vertically aligned CNT arrays/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane with large and expandable area was prepared by a modular splicing method for the first time, with a maximum area of 144 cm. The addition of CNT arrays with openings at both ends significantly improved the pervaporation performance of the PDMS membrane for ethanol recovery. At 80 °C, the flux (671.6 g m h) and separation factor (9.0) of CNT arrays/PDMS membrane were increased by 435.12% and 58.52%, respectively, compared with those of the PDMS membrane. Furthermore, the expandable area enabled the CNT arrays/PDMS membrane to couple with fed-batch fermentation for pervaporation for the first time, which increased the ethanol yield (0.47 g g) and productivity (2.34 g L h) by 9.3% and 4.9% respectively compared with batch fermentation. Besides, the flux (135.47-166.79 g m h) and separation factor (8.83-9.21) of CNT arrays/PDMS membrane remained stable in this process, indicating that this membrane has the potential to be applied in industrial bioethanol production. This work provides a new idea for the preparation of large-area aligned CNT/polymer membranes, and also opens up a new direction for the application of large-area aligned CNT/polymer membranes.
定向碳纳米管（CNT）阵列已广泛用于聚合物复合材料的制备。CNT 阵列通常通过高温管式炉中的化学气相沉积（CVD）制备，由于炉内直径的限制，制备的定向 CNT/聚合物膜的面积相对较小（<30cm），这限制了其在膜分离领域的实际应用。在此，首次通过模块化拼接方法制备了具有大且可扩展面积的垂直定向 CNT 阵列/聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）膜，最大面积可达 144cm。两端开口的 CNT 阵列的添加显著提高了 PDMS 膜用于乙醇回收的渗透蒸发性能。在 80°C 时，与 PDMS 膜相比，CNT 阵列/PDMS 膜的通量（671.6g m h）和分离因子（9.0）分别提高了 435.12%和 58.52%。此外，可扩展面积使 CNT 阵列/PDMS 膜首次能够与分批发酵耦合进行渗透蒸发，与分批发酵相比，乙醇产量（0.47g g）和生产率（2.34g L h）分别提高了 9.3%和 4.9%。此外，在这个过程中，CNT 阵列/PDMS 膜的通量（135.47-166.79g m h）和分离因子（8.83-9.21）保持稳定，表明该膜具有在工业生物乙醇生产中应用的潜力。这项工作为制备大面积定向 CNT/聚合物膜提供了新的思路，也为大面积定向 CNT/聚合物膜的应用开辟了新的方向。
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