High Virus Removal by Self‐Organized Nanostructured 2D Liquid‐Crystalline Smectic Membranes for Water Treatment

To obtain high quality of drinking water free from biocontaminants is especially important issue. A new strategy employing smectic liquid‐crystalline ionic membranes exhibiting 2D structures of layered nanochannels for water treatment is proposed for efficient virus removal and sufficient water flux. The smectic A (SmA) liquid‐crystalline membranes obtained by in situ polymerization of an ionic mesogenic monomer are examined for removal of three distinct viruses with small size: Qβ bacteriophage, MS2 bacteriophage, and Aichi virus. The semi‐bilayer structure of the SmA significantly obstructs the virus penetration with an average log reduction value of 7.3 log10 or the equivalent of reducing 18 million viruses down to 1. Furthermore, the layered nanochannels of the SmA liquid crystal allow efficient water permeation compared to other types of liquid‐crystalline membrane consisting of nanopores. A 2D virus removal membrane for water treatment based on polymeric self‐assembling liquid crystal is developed. The obtained polymer membrane shows excellent virus removal with 99.999994% efficiency. The liquid crystal forms 2D lamellar nanochannels allowing superior virus removal while maintaining improved permeation.