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Ultrafast water‐selective permeation through graphene oxide membrane with water transport promoters
Author(s) -
Liang Feng,
Liu Quan,
Zhao Jing,
Guan Kecheng,
Mao Yangyang,
Liu Gongping,
Gu Xuehong,
Jin Wanqin
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.16812
Subject(s) - membrane , permeation , pervaporation , chemical engineering , graphene , aqueous solution , water transport , oxide , materials science , butanol , membrane technology , diffusion , chemistry , nanotechnology , environmental engineering , water flow , organic chemistry , environmental science , thermodynamics , biochemistry , physics , ethanol , engineering , metallurgy
Graphene oxide (GO), as a representative two‐dimensional material, has shown great prospect in developing high‐performance separation membranes via forming ordered and tunable nanochannels. However, for aqueous molecular separations, the implementation of an excellent separation performance remains a critical challenge due to the membrane swelling phenomenon and the trade‐off effect between permeation flux and separation factor. Herein, a facile and tunable approach is presented for introducing water transport promoters into GO interlayer channels to construct water transport highways. The combination of covalently cross‐linked channel structure, facilitated water‐selective sorption, and expedited water‐preferential diffusion overcome the trade‐off effect, achieving a superior performance from an ultrathin GO membrane with a flux of 5.94 kg/m 2 ∙h and a water/butanol separation factor of 3,965, which exceeds the performance of state‐of‐the‐art membranes for water/butanol separation. The strategy proposed here is straightforward, holding great potential to produce high‐efficiency GO and other two‐dimensional (2D)‐material membranes for precise aqueous molecular separations.