Membrane Science Commons^™

Pore-Confined Carriers And Biomolecules In Mesoporous Silica For Biomimetic Separation And Targeting, Shanshan Zhou

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Selectively permeable biological membranes composed of lipophilic barriers inspire the design of biomimetic carrier-mediated membranes for aqueous solute separation. This work imparts selective permeability to lipid-filled pores of silica thin film composite membranes using carrier molecules that reside in the lipophilic self-assemblies. The lipids confined inside the pores of silica are proven to be a more effective barrier than bilayers formed on the porous surface through vesicle fusion, which is critical for quantifying the function of an immobilized carrier. The ability of a lipophilic carrier embedded in the lipid bilayer to reversibly bind the target solute and transport it through …

Biomolecule Localization And Surface Engineering Within Size Tunable Nanoporous Silica Particles, Daniel M. Schlipf

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Mesoporous silica materials are versatile platforms for biological catalysis, isolation of small molecules for detection and separation applications. The design of mesoporous silica supports for tailored protein and biomolecule interactions has been limited by the techniques to demonstrate biomolecule location and functionality as a function of pore size. This work examines the interaction of proteins and lipid bilayers with engineered porous silica surfaces using spherical silica particles with tunable pore diameters (3 – 12 nm) in the range relevant to biomolecule uptake in the pores, and large particle sizes (5 - 15 µm) amenable to microscopy imaging

The differentiation of …

Nanofiltration Membranes From Oriented Mesoporous Silica Thin Films, Mary K. Wooten

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The synthesis of mesoporous silica thin films using surfactant templating typically leads to an inaccessible pore orientation, making these films not suitable for membrane applications. Recent advances in thin film synthesis provide for the alignment of hexagonal pores in a direction orthogonal to the surface when templated on chemically neutral surfaces. In this work, orthogonal thin film silica membranes are synthesized on alumina supports using block copolymer poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(propylene glycol)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (P123) as the template. The orthogonal pore structure is achieved by sandwiching membranes between two chemically neutral surfaces, resulting in 90 nm thick films. Solvent flux of ethanol through …