Fig. 1: Design concept and merits of nanofiber-interwoven gel membranes (NIGMs).

a Bio-inspired design of NIGMs for efficient CO₂ separation. Learning from rapid propagation of signals along the 3D densely-stacked cardiac muscle fibers, NIGMs are imparted with CNT-interwoven interconnected transport channels and highly-selective CO₂-philic gel matrix. b Schematic illustration of structure and performance evolution of NIGMs with conventional polymeric membranes, including polyimide^22,23, cellulose acetate^24,25, polysulfone^25,26 and polycarbonates^25,27. As comparisons, NIGMs show a prominent boost in permeance and selectivity simultaneously, both of which are much better than that of conventional counterparts.