Functionalized boron nitride membranes with multipurpose and super-stable semi-permeability in solvents

Multipurpose and super-stable molecular sieving membranes exhibit great potential for mixture separation at low energy cost within extreme chemical and thermal environments. However, nanoporous membranes are currently only used in a relatively limited range of solvents. When used in some solvents, these membranes are easily degraded at high temperatures or in harsh chemical environments. Herein, we report ultrathin functionalized boron nitride (FBN) membranes that provide unprecedented multipurpose molecular separation. FBN membranes show high permeation and selectivity in aqueous and organic solutions, and they also maintain super-stable sieving performance even after exposure to a high temperature of up to 200 °C for 1 hour. Also, FBN membranes are stable in a wide range of solvents (water, ethanol, acetone, toluene, and hexane) for up to 24 hours as well as in extreme pH conditions (0.5 mol L−1 NaOH, 0.5 mol L−1 H2SO4, and 0.5 mol L−1 HNO3) for 24 hours. These multipurpose, super-stable FBN molecular-sieving membranes can potentially be used in a wide range of high throughput manufacturing processes to facilitate large-scale molecular separation to meet many industrial requirements.