S.Y. Yang¹, I. Ryu², H.Y. Kim¹, J.K. Kim¹, S.K. Jang², T.P. Russell³

¹ Departments of Environmental Science and Engineering and Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Kyungbuk 790-784, Korea
² Department of Life Sciences, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Kyungbuk 790-784, Korea
³ Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

^† We thank Dr.?Y.?S.?Kang from KIST for stimulating discussions on the morphology of the asymmetric membranes. This work was supported by the Creative Research Initiative Program, Grant Systems-BioDynamics-National Core Research Center (R15-2004-033-01001-0) from the Korea Research Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Supporting Information is available online from Wiley InterScience or from the author.

A double-layered nanoporous membrane suitable for virus filtration has been fabricated. The top layer has cylindrical pores with diameters of 15 nm and a narrow pore size distribution (see figure). The bottom support layer is a conventional microfiltration membrane. This asymmetric membrane completely blocks human rhinovirus type14 (colored green) from penetrating into pores, while proteins such as bovine serum albumin (colored yellow) freely pass through the pores

Keywords: Biomedical applications; Block copolymers; Membranes; Nanoporous materials