Self-sealing, Atomic Thin Dialysis Membranes: Proteins convert leaks into filtration benefits

The Vanderbilt-led research team has made a major breakthrough in the development of advanced dialysis membranes using atomically thin materials such as graphene. These innovative membranes, called nanoporous atomic thin films (NATMs), utilize protein-enabled sealing mechanisms to maintain high efficiency in filtration of small molecules while minimizing protein loss. Addressing important issues.

This work has been published in Nano Letters magazine.

Dialysis membranes need to balance two important functions. It is to allow small molecules to pass for removal, while preventing leakage of important proteins. The team’s approach uses the unique properties of graphene (extremely thin and customizable nanopores) to allow for accurate and rapid filtration. However, even a single large pore can cause excessive leakage and can impair the performance of the membrane.

To tackle this, researchers have developed new methods to convert protein leaks into benefits. When proteins escape from large pores, they react with molecules on the opposite side of the graphene membrane. This reaction causes a sealing process and preserves small pores while selecting small pores.

This self-sealing feature ensures accurate size selective filtration and improves the overall effectiveness of the membrane.

“The ability to seal inconsistent pore sizes and selectively filter molecules based on size represents a new paradigm for dialysis membranes,” said Assistant Professor of Research in Chemistry and Biomolecular Engineering, the first of his research. said Peifu Cheng, author of the book.

“Proteins and biomolecules have natural flexibility that can be slightly deformed when they pass through the nanopore,” explained Chen. “Our approach is based on this property and has made significant advances beyond current dialysis techniques and commercial membranes.”

Piran Kidanbi, assistant professor of chemistry and biomolecular engineering, who led the project, highlighted the groundbreaking nature of the work. “Our research introduces proteins as a nanoscale tool for designing pore sizes in atomically thin membranes, overcoming the key challenges of current dialysis systems.

“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of such a method, opening the door to utilizing a wide range of biomolecules, including DNA and RNA, for accurate membrane production.”

The team demonstrated this protein-compatible size-selective defect sealing (PDS) method on centimeter-scale graphene membranes. These defect sealed NATMs remained stable for up to 35 days and consistently outperformed cutting-edge commercial dialysis membranes.