Polymer membrane fabrication via solvent evaporation скачать в хорошем качестве

Polymer membrane fabrication via solvent evaporation

Evaporating the solvent from a polymer, long-chain molecules commonly found in plastics and biology concentrates the polymers at the surface. In this case, the polymers are made out of two blocks. At increased concentration, these two blocks repel each other strongly. But the covalent bonds of the chain molecules prevent a full separation. The result is a microphase separation on nanometer scales. Here we see A-rich cylinders in a B-rich surround matrix. The simple evaporation allows cheap manufacturing of membranes with controlled pore characteristics and mechanical stability. Applications for these membranes can be found in water purification, lithium batteries, or hydrogen fuel cells for clean water and energy. We investigate the formation to understand the underlying physics which gives us insights to tune the membranes for each application. We need to simulate large systems with millions of particles to explore the full size of the forming morphologies - impossible without modern accelerated supercomputers. Simulations were performed within the framework of the JUWELS-booster early access programme. Music: "A Thought" by Podington Bear from freemusicarchive.org, CC BY-NC 3.0