biostudies-literatureUnknown10(26)Wang YThis study leverages the ancient craft of weaving to prepare membranes that can effectively treat oil/water mixtures, specifically challenging nanoemulsions. Drawing inspiration from the core-shell architecture of spider silk, we have engineered fibers, the fundamental building blocks for weaving membranes, that feature a mechanically robust core for tight weaving, coupled with a CO₂-responsive shell that allows for on-demand wettability adjustments. Tightly weaving these fibers produces membranes with ideal pores, achieving over 99.6% separation efficiency for nanoemulsions with droplets as small as 20 nm. They offer high flux rates, on-demand self-cleaning, and can switch between sieving oil and water nanodroplets through simple CO₂/N₂ stimulation. MoreovScience advanceseadn3289https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC11204282biostudies-literatureScalable weaving of resilient membranes with on-demand superwettability for high-performance nanoemulsion separations.PMC11204282Villalobos LFLi JDong LZhu BChen CBai YAn QFZhao YElimelech MLiang LWang YZhang CMeng HfalseScalable weaving of resilient membranes with on-demand superwettability for high-performance nanoemulsion separations.This study leverages the ancient craft of weaving to prepare membranes that can effectively treat oil/water mixtures, specifically challenging nanoemulsions. Drawing inspiration from the core-shell architecture of spider silk, we have engineered fibers, the fundamental building blocks for weaving membranes, that feature a mechanically robust core for tight weaving, coupled with a CO₂-responsive shell that allows for on-demand wettability adjustments. Tightly weaving these fibers produces membranes with ideal pores, achieving over 99.6% separation efficiency for nanoemulsions with droplets as small as 20 nm. They offer high flux rates, on-demand self-cleaning, and can switch between sieving oil and water nanodroplets through simple CO₂/N₂ stimulation. Moreov2024-01-01T00:00:00Z2024 Jun2025-06-01T01:40:07.391Z2025-06-01T01:40:07.391ZS-EPMC112042823892441010.1126/sciadv.adn3289