Advanced functional membranes based on amphiphilic copolymers

Abstract

Membranes with advanced and novel functions play important roles in emerging applications ranging from industrial separations, water purification, energy harvesting and storage, healthcare, biomimetic membranes and more. The performance of membranes in these critical applications is fundamentally determined by their interfacial interactions with surrounding ions, molecules, particles, emulsions, and bioactive agents. Amphiphilic copolymers containing both hydrophobic and hydrophilic segments will spontaneously assemble into multiphase and hierarchical structures, providing a general solution for regulating the surface physicochemical properties of membranes used in the aforementioned urgent applications. Controlled synthesis of amphiphilic copolymers and the methods for fabricating membranes from these copolymers with predetermined performance are fundamentally important for their applications. In this work, we first summarize the polymerization techniques for synthesizing amphiphilic copolymers used for membrane materials. We then review the methods for fabricating membranes from amphiphilic copolymers and highlight the urgent applications of advanced functional membranes derived from them. We also discuss some remaining challenges and provide insights into future directions, especially as the circular polymer economy and artificial intelligence are setting new requirements for polymer science. This work offers a comprehensive overview of recent advances in functional materials based on amphiphilic polymers, including the working principles and relationships between polymer structure, processing strategies, and membrane performance, which provides new insights into the development of high-performance and next-generation polymeric membranes through the precise, functionality-driven synthesis of novel amphiphilic copolymers and the controlled fabrication of membranes.