(373o) Dehydrated Channel Protein-Based Biomimetic Membranes with High Breathability and Protective Capability

Due to the vulnerability of human skin, protective fabrics have been developed to provide protection against hazardous substances. While current dense impermeable protective materials reject exogenous materials effectively, their low water vapor permeability makes wearers suffer from heat stress. In this work, we designed channel protein-based biomimetic membranes to offer both high breathability and protective capability by emulating the structure and function of skin. With highly packed well-defined structured pores (representing sweat pores), it shows high water vapor transport rate exceeding the performance of commercial breathable fabrics. By mimicking a ‘brick and mortar’ structure of human skin, we achieved high protective capacity against a range of dye molecules and a model biological agent, MS2 bacteriophage. We propose a side change rearrangement of the channel proteins to explain their unique performance change in liquid water transport upon dehydration.