Fabrication and characterization of nanoporous polymer track membrane

The nanoporous polymer track membrane is fabricated using swift heavy ion to irradiate polymer membrane. This review focuses on the fabrication and characterization of nanoporous polymer track membrane prepared by ion track etching technique and recently developed track-UV technique. By discarding the chemical etching process used in the traditional track-etched technique, this recently developed method can successfully generate latent track nanoporous polymer membranes with a high density of nanopores at the nanometer or even a sub-nanometer scale. These membranes show ion transport with both ultra-high selectivity and high permeability, and have broad applications in seawater desalination and ion separation. (authors)