Interfacial formation of porous membranes with poly(ethylene glycol) in a microfluidic environment

In a microfluidic environment, the liquid-liquid interface, formed by laminar flows of immiscible solutions, can be used to generate thin membranes via interfacial polymerization. Because these thin nylon membranes have a very small pore size or lack porosity entirely, their utilization in some biological applications is greatly limited. We introduce an in situ fabrication method using the interfacial reaction of a two-phase system to generate a porous nylon membrane. The membranes were characterized with scanning electron microscopy and fluorescent beads. Scanning electron microscopy micrographs verified the asymmetrical structure of the porous membrane, and the membrane pore sizes ranged from 0.1 to 1 mu m. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.