Mesoporous phenolics filled in macroporous membranes for tunable tight-ultrafiltration

Separation of colloidal nanoparticulates requires tight ultrafiltration (TUF) membranes. Phenolic polymers with well-defined sub-10 nm mesopores are promising candidates for such membranes, but suffer from intrinsic fragility. Herein, robust mesoporous phenolic membranes with flexibly adjustable TUF functions are realized through a new pore-filling strategy. Phenolic prepolymers with tunable fluidity are spontaneously filled into macroporous substrates with precisely controllable filling depths. Subsequent thermopolymerization fully cures the prepolymer and acid soaking removes the templating pluronic copolymers, producing composite TUF membranes with mesoporous phenolics embedded in flexible substrates. The membranes exhibit widely adjustable molecular-weight-cut-offs (MWCOs) (2.6-41 kg/mol) depending on the filling depth of phenolics while maintain otherwise unattainable high permeabilities. We further investigate the separation of CdTe and carbon quantum dots dispersed in water and toluene by these membranes, and they show excellent concentration and fractionation effect. This work enables efficient separation of ultra-small colloids by robust TUF membranes.