Functional Poly(ionic Liquid) Porous Membranes: from Fabrications to Advanced Applications

Polyelectrolyte porous membranes (PPMs) belong to the most interesting classes of materials, because the synergy of tunable pore sizes and charge nature of polyelectrolyte endow them with wide-ranging practical applications. However, owing to the water solubility and ionic nature of the polyelectrolytes, traditional polyelectrolytes are difficult to use in scalable preparation of high-quality PPMs through the well-developed industrial methods. Poly(ionic liquid)s (PIL) are a subclass of functional polyelectrolytes bearing ionic liquid groups in their repeating unites, inheriting the advantages of ionic liquids (ILs) and macromolecular architecture features. In recent years, along with rapid development of PIL materials chemistry, considerable and significant developments involving the novel preparation methods, and structure-property-function relationships of PPMs have been made. In this review, we highlight the latest discovery and proceedings of PPMs, particularly the advancements in how to tailor structures and properties of PPMs by rational structure design of PILs. The formation mechanisms of various PPMs were also discussed in detail from the viewpoint of PILs molecular structures. A future perspective of the challenges and promising potential of PPMs is cast on the basis of these achievements. We expect that these analyses and deductions will be useful for the design of useful PPMs and serve as a source of inspiration for the design of future multifunctional PPMs.