A kind of compound which could form hybrid organic-inorganic material-3-(ureido-4-methoxyphenyl)propyltriethoxysilane was obtained from 3-isocyanatopropyltriethoxysilaneand p-anisidine. The structure and the crystallinity of the compound were characterized by FT-IR, ¹H NMR, DSC, and XRD methods. According to the self-assembling property of the compound, the ion channel hybrid membrane with the homogeneous structure was obtained by blending the compound and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Next, the cation transport properties of the membrane were tested by our self-made device, and the transport mechanism was proposed. SEM revealed that the ion channel hybrid membrane was dense and defect free. The thickness of the membrane was 8 μm from the SEM images of cross section. Five kinds of cations were chosen for membrane transport experiments. The results demonstrated that the self-organized hybrid ion channel membrane could transport monovalent Li⁺, Na⁺and K⁺, which was attributed to the cation-π interaction with the methoxyphenyl moiety. The process of alkali cationic transport across membrane was explained with the dissolution-diffusion mechanism. The results showed that the permeability of Li⁺, Na⁺and K⁺transport through the hybrid membrane followed the order P_Na⁺ > P_K⁺ > P_Li⁺, which revealed that the self-organized hybrid ion channel membrane reported in this paper preferred to transport Na⁺. Besides the hybrid membrane could not transport divalent Ca²⁺and Mg²⁺. The result can provide new membrane materials for the separation of monovalent ions and divalent ions.

Key words: self-organization, ion channel, hybrid membrane, cation