A team of scientist in Shanghai, China has placed magnetic nanoparticles into the thin-film realm. The group has created a flexible magnetic nanofibrous membrane by combining gelatin dip-coating methods with electrospun silica nanofibers. An external magnet can control the membrane flexion. The membrane also demonstrates selective wettability meaning that it is impervious to oil while easily allowing water to penetrate through.
Traditional porous silica nanofibrous membranes are brittle, but this one is not. To create a flexible membrane the team electrospun a porous membrane of interlaced silica nanofibers. They grew NiFe2O4 nanoparticles on this flexible silica nanofibrous membrane through a gelatin dip-coating method described in detail in the published article. The nanoparticles were 20-50nm in size, were partially inlayed evenly in the silica nanofiber network, and made up 31.6% by weight of the finished magnetic membrane.
The finished product maintains its structure even after 15 minutes of sonication, and can withstand multiple bending cycles without breaking. The membrane can adsorb methylene blue dye. It can be separated out of solution with an external magnet. It can separate an emulsion of oil and water with nothing more than atmospheric pressure and gravity.
“A general strategy for fabricating flexible magnetic silica nanofibrous membranes with multifunctionality.” Yang Si, Chengsheng Yan, Feifei Hong, Jianyong Yu, Bin Ding.Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 12521-12524. DOI: 10.1039/C5CC03718B.
Related news:
- 2015 Merck Millipore Diagnostics Forum to be held in Tokyo, Japan
- Magnetic activated cell sorting: the possibility of contamination by instrinsicallysuperparamagnetic cells
- Magnetic activated cell sorting: the possibility of contamination by instrinsically superparamagnetic cells
