Résumé
Inspired by biological models, artificial water channels can be used to overcome the permeability/ selectivity trade-off of traditional desalination membranes. We demonstrate that rational incorporation of I-quartet artificial water channels in composite polyamide membranes synthesized via interfacial polymerization, provide defect free biomimetic membranes with intrinsic water-to-salt permeability on the operational SWRO-BWRO/TWRO desalination pressure and high/medium/low salinity conditions. The best biomimetic composite membranes, which can be easily scaled for industrial standards (> m 2 ), provide remarkable 99.5% rejection of NaCl and 91.2% boron rejection with water flux of 75 L m -2 h -1 at 65 bar applied pressure with a 35000 ppm NaCl feed solution at pH 8, 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 effective area for the same water output and a ~12% reduction of the required energy for desalination.