Volume 233, 2022

Potential-induced wetting and dewetting in pH-responsive block copolymer membranes for mass transport control

Abstract

Wetting and dewetting behavior in channel-confined hydrophobic volumes is used in biological membranes to effect selective ion/molecular transport. Artificial biomimetic hydrophobic nanopores have been devised utilizing wetting and dewetting, however, tunable mass transport control utilizing multiple transport modes is required for applications such as controllable release/transport, water separation/purification and energy conversion. Here, we investigate the potential-induced wetting and dewetting behavior in a pH-responsive membrane composed of a polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) block copolymer (BCP) when fabricated as a hierarchically-organized sandwich structure on a nanopore electrode array (NEA), i.e. BCP@NEA. At pH < pKa(P4VP) (pKa ∼ 4.8), the BCP acts as an anion-exchange membrane due to the hydrophilic, protonated P4VP cylindrical nanodomains, but at pH > pKa(P4VP), the P4VP domains exhibit charge-neutral, hydrophobic and collapsed structures, blocking mass transport via the hydrophobic membrane. However, when originally prepared in a dewetted condition, mass transport in the BCP membrane may be switched on if sufficiently negative potentials are applied to the BCP@NEA architecture. When the hydrophobic BCP membrane is introduced on top of 2-electrode-embedded nanopore arrays, electrolyte solution in the nanopores is introduced, then isolated, by exploiting the potential-induced wetting and dewetting transitions in the BCP membrane. The potential-induced wetting/dewetting transition and the effect on cyclic voltammetry in the BCP@NEA structures is characterized as a function of the potential, pH and ionic strength. In addition, chronoamperometry and redox cycling experiments are used to further characterize the potential response. The multi-modal mass transport system proposed in this work will be useful for ultrasensitive sensing and single-molecule studies, which require long-time monitoring to explore reaction dynamics as well as molecular heterogeneity in nanoconfined volumes.

Graphical abstract: Potential-induced wetting and dewetting in pH-responsive block copolymer membranes for mass transport control

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 अगस्त 2021
Accepted
01 सितम्बर 2021
First published
14 दिसम्बर 2021

Faraday Discuss., 2022,233, 283-294

Author version available

Potential-induced wetting and dewetting in pH-responsive block copolymer membranes for mass transport control

S. Kwon, S. Baek and Paul W. Bohn, Faraday Discuss., 2022, 233, 283 DOI: 10.1039/D1FD00048A

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