In
view of their facile fabrication and recycling, functional materials
that are built from small molecules (“molecular plastics”)
may represent a cost-efficient and sustainable alternative to conventional
covalent materials. We show how molecular plastics can be made robust
and how their (nano)structure can be tuned via modular
construction. For this purpose, we employed binary composites of organic
nanocrystals based on a perylene diimide derivative, with graphene
oxide (GO), bentonite nanoclay (NC), or hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC),
that both reinforce and enable tailoring the properties of the membranes.
The hybrids are prepared via a simple aqueous deposition
method, exhibit enhanced mechanical robustness, and can be recycled.
We utilized these properties to create separation membranes with tunable
porosity that are easy to fabricate and recycle. Hybrids 1/HEC and 1/NC are capable of ultrafiltration, and 1/NC removes heavy metals from water with high efficiency.
Hybrid 1/GO shows mechanical properties akin to covalent
materials with just 2–10% (by weight) of GO. This hybrid was
used as a membrane for immobilizing β-galactosidase that demonstrated
long and stable biocatalytic activity. Our findings demonstrate the
utility of modular molecular nanoplastics as robust and sustainable
materials that enable efficient tuning of structure and function and
are based on self-assembly of readily available inexpensive components.