Clean URL from special characters

//Remove programming characters
function replaceSpecials($membre)
{       
    $to_replace = array("`", "`", "!", "#", '$', "%", "^", "*",  "(", ")", "{", "}", "[", "]", "|",  "'", '"', "<", ">");
    $memru= str_replace($to_replace, '', $memru);
    $memru = stripslashes($memru);
    $memru= filter_var($memru, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
    $memru= str_replace('%', '?', $memru);
    $memru= str_replace('??', '?', $memru);
    return $memru;
}

function clean_url($url)
{
    list($url) = explode("*", $url, 2);
    list($url) = explode("%", $url, 2);
    list($url) = explode("'", $url, 2);
    list($url) = explode('"', $url, 2); 
    $url = replaceSpecials($url);     
    return $url;
}