Nanoporous membrane fabrication by nanoimprint lithography for nanoparticle sieving

An isoporous membrane with strictly controlled pore size, shape and distribution could provide an efficient, precise and mild sieving of particles in nanotechnology and biomedical applications. However there is a lack of highly porous polymeric membranes combining isoporosity and high permeance in the range below 500 nm. Track-etched membranes are practically the only commercial option. Membranes prepared by phase inversion typically have a broad pore size distribution. Most nanofabrication methods have limited the preparation of membranes with pores in the micrometer range. In this work, we present a nanotechnology-based fabrication methodology to manufacture a stable and flexible nanoporous polymeric membrane with 300 nm isopores using UV nanoimprint lithography. The highly porous membrane has a pore density of 4 × 10⁹ pores per cm² and stable permeance of 108 000 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹. Uniform ZIF-8 nanoparticles were synthesized and the isoporous membrane successfully demonstrated as high as 100% rejection and size-based sieving performance of nanoparticles.