Silica ultrafiltration membrane with tunable pore size for macromolecule separation

An innovative and facile approach for preparing mesoporous silica membranes is described. The prepared membranes possess abundant, accessible, wormlike pores across the membrane. Narrow pore-size distribution and tunable pore sizes ranging from 2 to 6 nm have been obtained by using a sol–gel method with phosphoric acid as pore-forming agent. The prepared membranes have a potential application in ultrafiltration.