Removal of viruses from their cocktail solution by liquid-crystalline water-treatment membranes

Daniel Kuo; Takeshi Sakamoto; Shotaro Torii; Miaomiao Liu; Hiroyuki Katayama; Takashi Kato

doi:10.1038/s41428-022-00631-1

Removal of viruses from their cocktail solution by liquid-crystalline water-treatment membranes

Polym J. 2022;54(6):821-825. doi: 10.1038/s41428-022-00631-1. Epub 2022 Mar 14.

Authors

Daniel Kuo¹, Takeshi Sakamoto¹, Shotaro Torii², Miaomiao Liu², Hiroyuki Katayama², Takashi Kato^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656 Japan.
² Department of Urban Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656 Japan.
³ Research Initiative for Supra-Materials, Shinshu University, Wakasato, Nagano, 380-8553 Japan.

Abstract

Liquid-crystalline (LC) water-treatment membranes obtained by in situ photopolymerization of ionic mesogenic monomers have been shown to efficiently remove viruses. In our previous works, bicontinuous cubic (Cub_bi) and smectic (Sm) LC membranes prepared from ionic taper- and rod-shaped polymerizable mesogens, respectively, were used for this purpose. Here, we report the results of virus removal by columnar (Col) LC water-treatment membranes having ionic nanochannels obtained from ionic taper-shaped mesogens. These effects are compared with those obtained for Cub_bi membranes. The effects of these Col and Cub_bi LC ionic membranes on the removal of several viruses from their cocktail solution are also examined.

Keywords: Liquid crystals; Supramolecular polymers.