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Ultrafast permeation of water through protein-based membranes

Nature Nanotechnology volume 4, pages 353–357 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Pressure-driven filtration by porous membranes is widely used in the production of drinking water from ground and surface water1,2,3. Permeation theory predicts that filtration rate is proportional to the pressure difference across the filtration membrane and inversely proportional to the thickness of the membrane4. However, these membranes need to be able to withstand high water fluxes and pressures, which means that the active separation layers in commercial filtration systems typically have a thickness of a few tens to several hundreds of nanometres5. Filtration performance might be improved by the use of ultrathin porous silicon membranes6 or carbon nanotubes immobilized in silicon nitride7 or polymer films8,9, but these structures are difficult to fabricate. Here, we report a new type of filtration membrane made of crosslinked proteins that are mechanically robust and contain channels with diameters of less than 2.2 nm. We find that a 60-nm-thick membrane can concentrate aqueous dyes from fluxes up to 9,000 l h−1 m−2 bar−1, which is ∼1,000 times higher than the fluxes that can be withstood by commercial filtration membranes with similar rejection properties1,10,11. Based on these results and molecular dynamics simulations, we propose that protein-surrounded channels with effective lengths of less than 5.8 nm can separate dye molecules while allowing the ultrafast permeation of water at applied pressures of less than 1 bar.

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Figure 1: Filtration of protoporphyrin by protein-based membrane.
Figure 2: Rejection of protoporphyrin and thickness-dependent water permeability.
Figure 3: Water permeation through protein-surrounded channels.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank S. Nakao (Tokyo University) for many helpful discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Organic Nanomaterials Center, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044, Japan

    Xinsheng Peng, Jian Jin & Izumi Ichinose

  2. Computational Materials Science Center, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba, 305-0047, Japan

    Yoshimichi Nakamura & Takahisa Ohno

  3. JST, CREST, 5 Sanbancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-0075, Japan

    Takahisa Ohno & Izumi Ichinose

Authors
  1. Xinsheng Peng
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  2. Jian Jin
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  4. Takahisa Ohno
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  5. Izumi Ichinose
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Contributions

X.P. was responsible for the preparation and characterization of protein-based membranes, evaluation of filtration properties of dyes and other water-soluble compounds, and analysis of water permeability. Y.N. and T.O. were responsible for molecular dynamics simulations. J.J. contributed to the crosslinking of proteins. X.P. and I.I. were responsible for experimental design and manuscript preparation. I.I. was responsible for project planning.

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Correspondence to Izumi Ichinose.

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Peng, X., Jin, J., Nakamura, Y. et al. Ultrafast permeation of water through protein-based membranes. Nature Nanotech 4, 353–357 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2009.90

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