Scientific Achievement
A robust and efficient synthetic strategy permits development of wide libraries of membrane structures with well-controlled functionality.
Image: Active ester substitution enables diverse functionality to be incorporated into PEG diacrylate membranes.
Significance and Impact
Independent synthetic control over membrane properties such as water uptake and functionality open numerous opportunities for elucidating membrane structure-property relationships.
Research Details
- PEG diacrylate networks were functionalized via post-polymerization modification using active ester substitution.
- From the same crosslinked scaffold, a diversity of basic, acidic,and solute-chelating moieties were obtained while maintaining a high degree of control over crosslinking density, water uptake, and grafting density, which are key variables affecting membrane performance.
- Diverse functionalization was shown to enable tailored uptake of basic and acidic organic dyes and metal salts.
PEG diacrylate copolymer networks containing pentafluorophenyl active esters can be quantitatively substituted with a wide variety of primary amines, enabling development of a versatile synthetic platform for the preparation of polymer hydrogel and membrane libraries. By tuning the starting network, a high degree of control over crosslinking density, water uptake, and functional group incorporation can be reproducibly achieved, which is vital for elucidating structure-property relationships in ion transporting membranes.
From the same crosslinked scaffold, a diversity of basic, acidic, and solute-chelating moieties were obtained through functionalization which allows for tailored uptake of basic and acidic organic dyes and metal chloride salts. Ion permeation and sorption measurements for a series of polymer networks with controlled crosslinking density and varied imidazole grafting densities illustrate the ability of this platform to isolate the effect of chemical functionality on ion transport from the effects of crosslinking density and water content.
Moon, J. D.; Sujanani, R.; Geng, Z.; Freeman, B. D.; Segalman, R. A.; Hawker, C. J. Versatile Synthetic Platform for Polymer Membrane Libraries Using Functional Networks. Macromolecules 2021, 54 (2), 866–873.
Work was performed at University of California, Santa Barbara and The University of Texas at Austin.