One step fabrication of mesh-reinforced hierarchic perforated microporous honeycomb films with tunable filtering property

Abstract

Highly ordered porous films whose pore size ranges from submicron to micron scale have always been an extensive area of research due to their broad range of application to photonic crystals, cell culturing scaffolds, filtration and separation membranes, just to name a few. However, the fragile nature of such a functional porous film has hindered its implementation to advanced uses. Inspired by the hierarchic structure in nature which offers both robustness and functionality, we created in a single fabrication step a mesh-reinforced hierarchic perforated honeycomb film with highly ordered micron pores using the breath figure method. By using the elastomer 1,2-polybutadiene as the material for the film in the combination of the mesh grid, the pore size of the obtained film can be tuned upon stretching. Tubular structures made from the mesh-reinforced hierarchic perforated porous honeycomb film with tunable pore size have been demonstrated.