Recently, Livingston and his colleagues published two articles in Nature and Science, respectively, to tackle the challenges of accurate molecular sieving and crude oil separation in the field of membrane separation by preparing ultrathin nanofilms through interfacial polymerization. One is that the nanofilms with ordered sub-nanopores achieve accurate molecular sieving at ångström precision, and the other is that the permeability of hydrophobic polyamide nanofilms to hydrophobic liquid is significantly enhanced by an order of magnitude. The thoughtful design and excellent performance provide a feasible strategy for the development of membrane separation, and show great potential in industrial applications(drug separation and crude oil fractionation).

近日，Livingston及其同事分别在《Nature》和《Science》上发表了两篇文章，通过界面聚合制备超薄纳米薄膜，攻克膜分离领域精准分子筛分和原油分离的挑战。一是具有有序亚纳米孔的纳米膜实现了埃级精度的精确分子筛分，二是疏水性聚酰胺纳米膜对疏水性液体的渗透性显着增强了一个数量级。周到的设计和优异的性能为膜分离的发展提供了可行的策略，并在工业应用（药物分离和原油分馏）中显示出巨大的潜力。