Inspired by biological proteins, artificial water channels (AWCs) can be used to overcome the performances of traditional desalination membranes. Their rational incorporation in composite polyamide provides an example of biomimetic membranes applied under representative reverse osmosis desalination conditions with an intrinsically high water-to-salt permeability ratio. The hybrid polyamide presents larger voids and seamlessly incorporates I–quartet AWCs for highly selective transport of water. These biomimetic membranes can be easily scaled for industrial standards (>m²), provide 99.5% rejection of NaCl or 91.4% rejection of boron, with a water flux of 75 l m⁻² h⁻¹ at 65 bar and 35,000 ppm NaCl feed solution, representative of seawater desalination. This flux is more than 75% higher than that observed with current state-of-the-art membranes with equivalent solute rejection, translating into an equivalent reduction of the membrane area for the same water output and a roughly 12% reduction of the required energy for desalination.

受生物蛋白质的启发，人工水通道 (AWC) 可用于克服传统海水淡化膜的性能。它们在复合聚酰胺中的合理结合提供了仿生膜在典型的反渗透脱盐条件下应用的一个例子，具有固有的高水盐渗透率。混合聚酰胺呈现出更大的空隙，并无缝结合 I-quartet AWCs 以实现水的高度选择性传输。这些仿生膜可以很容易地按工业标准 (>m ² ) 缩放，提供 99.5% 的氯化钠排斥率或 91.4% 的硼排斥率，水通量为 75 l m ⁻²  h ⁻¹在 65 巴和 35,000 ppm NaCl 进料溶液下，代表海水淡化。该通量比使用当前最先进的膜观察到的具有同等溶质排斥的通量高 75% 以上，转化为相同水输出的膜面积等效减少和所需能量减少约 12%用于脱盐。