J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (11): 1087-1093.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2015.09.004

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

On-Chip Fabrication of Carbon Nanoparticle-Chitosan Composite Membrane

Weiping Ding1, 2, Cheng Liang1, 2, Sijie Sun3, Liqun He4, Dayong Gao3, 5   

  1. 1 Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China; 2 Department of Electronic Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China; 3 Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; 4 Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China; 5 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
  • Received:2015-01-28 Online:2015-11-10
  • Contact: * Corresponding author. Ph.D.; Tel.: +86 551 63601801; Fax: +86 551 63607049.
  • Supported by:
    This work was partly supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province, China (No. 1408085ME96), the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No. 20133402120033), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (No. WK2100000001). We thank Qiang Wu and Yong Wang for their assistance in preparing the microchips. We acknowledge the support of the Experiment Center for Physical and Chemical Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China.

Abstract: The on-chip fabrication of a carbon nanoparticle-chitosan composite membrane (i.e. a sorbent membrane or a mixed matrix membrane) using laminar flow-based interfacial deprotonation technology was presented in this paper. In addition, the effects of carbon nanoparticles and reactant flow rates on membrane formation were investigated. Finally, the permeability and adsorption capacities of the membrane were discussed. During fabrication, an acidic chitosan solution and a basic buffer solution that contained carbon nanoparticles were introduced into a microchannel. At the flow interface, a freestanding composite membrane with embedded carbon nanoparticles was formed due to the deprotonation of the chitosan molecules. The membrane growth gradually stopped with time from upstream to downstream and the thickness of the membrane increased rapidly and then slowly along the reactant flow direction. The formation of the membrane was divided into two stages. The average growth rate in the first stage was significantly larger than the average growth rate in the second stage. Carbon nanoparticles in the basic solution acted as nucleating agents and made the membrane formation much easier. As the flow rate of the chitosan solution increased, the averaged membrane thickness and the membrane hydraulic permeability initially increased and then decreased. Because of the addition of carbon nanoparticles, the formed membrane had adsorption abilities. The carbon nanoparticle-chitosan composite membrane that was fabricated in this study could be employed for simultaneous adsorption and dialysis in microdevices in the future.

Key words: On-chip fabrication, Composite membrane, Carbon nanoparticle, Chitosan, Interfacial deprotonation, Mixed matrix membrane