Thin membranes with nanoscopic holes that span their thickness are used in a variety of ultrafiltration and nanofiltration applications. Commercial techniques used to prepare such membranes range from phase-inversion methods to track-etching. In such commercially available ultrafiltration membranes it is generally recognized that there is a trade-off between membrane selectivity and hydraulic permeability; highly selective membranes exhibit low permeabilities and visa versa. Ideally a nanoporous membrane should be both selective and allow for a high flux. Applications of membranes for the purification of water and in other industrial scenarios would benefit from this combination of properties. To overcome fundamental limitations exhibited by commercially available membranes, we have targeted the preparation of nanoporous polymers with both high porosities and narrow pore size distributions. We are focused on the preparation of such membranes utilizing block copolymers as key components. In this talk, work toward this goal using copolymers containing multiple blocks with multiple functionalities will be presented.
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