Temperature-regulation liquid gating membrane with controllable gas/liquid separation

Membrane separation technology with the ability to regulate gas/liquid transport and separation is critical for environmental fields, such as sewerage treatment, multiphase separation, and desalination. Although numerous membranes can dynamically control liquid-phase fluids transport via external stimuli, the transport and separation of gas-phase fluids remains a challenge. Here, we show a temperature-regulation liquid gating membrane that allows in-situ dynamically controllable gas/liquid transfer and multiphase separation by integrating a thermowettability responsive porous membrane with functional gating liquid. Experiments and theoretical analysis have demonstrated the temperatureregulation mechanism of this liquid gating system, which is based on thermo-responsive changes of porous membrane surface polarity, leading to changes in affinity between the porous membrane and the gating liquid. In addition, the sandwich configuration with dense Au-coated surfaces and heterogeneous internal components by a bistable interface design enables the liquid gating system to enhance response sensitivity and maintain working stability. This temperature-regulation gas/liquid transfer strategy expands the application range of liquid gating membranes, which are promising in environmental governance, water treatment and multiphase separation.(c) 2023 Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).