Bio-inspired polymer membranes

Bio-inspired membranes for advanced polymer electrolyte fuel cells (anhydrous proton-conducting membrane via molecular self-... 

Guo N, Leu MC, Koylu UO (2014) Bio-inspired flow field designs for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. Int J Hydrogen Energy 39 21185-21195. doi 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2014. 10.069... 

In contrast to polymersomes, there are various models of planar membranes monolayers at the water-air interface, free-standing bilayers, and solid-supported membranes. The functionality of proteins in natural membranes strongly depends on their mobility in the matrix, and this is thus an essential prerequisite for artificial membranes to mimic the dynamic environment of biomembranes in order to serve as templates for biomolecules.Therefore, the building blocks forming a bio-inspired membrane need to possess high flexibility to compensate the hydrophobic mismatch between the size of the biomolecules, and the membrane thickness. Furthermore, a variety of membrane properties (thickness, polarity, and surface charge) have to be considered for the successful insertion/attach-ment of biomolecules. Decoration of polymer membranes with biomolecules, either on their surfaces or inside the bilayers, can be achieved by various approaches, such as physical adsorption, insertion, and covalent binding. Compared to physical immobilization of biomolecules on... 

Figure 6.1 Conceptual overview of bio-inspired pofymer vesicles and planar polymer membranes.

Another bio-inspired approach is to design polymersomes as enclosed reaction compartments for the development of nanoreactors, nanodevices, or artificial organelles, in which active compounds are not only protected from the environment, but also allowed to act in situ. For such function, membrane permeability is of crucial importance, since it allows the exchange of substrates/products with the environment of the pol)maersomes. Various methods have been reported to generate polymersomes with permeable membranes (i) polymers forming intrinsically porous membranes, (ii) polymer membranes that are permeable to ions as e.g. specific oxygen species, (iii) pore formation in pH responsive polymer membranes by chemical treatment, (iv) polymer membrane permeabilization by UV-irradiation, and (v) biopores or membrane proteins inserted into polymer membranes. ... 

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