(18c) Fully Functional Large-Area Nanoporous Single Layer Graphene Membranes for Desalination and Water Purification
AIChE Annual Meeting
2021
2021 Annual Meeting
Environmental Division
Fundamentals of Food, Energy, and Water Systems
Sunday, November 7, 2021 - 4:00pm to 4:15pm
An ideal desalination membrane should exhibit minimum thickness to maximize water permeance and narrow
pore size distribution for efficient ionic /molecular separations. Monolayer graphene with uniform distribution of
high-density of sub-nanometer pores has been considered as the perfect material offering ultra-fast water
permeance and high solute rejection. However, scalable production of graphene membranes with control over
sub-nanometer pores remains challenging. Here, we report the fabrication of large-area nanoporous graphene
membrane for high-efficiency water desalination. The density of defects that manifest as small nanopores in
graphene is significantly increased via facile and scalable oxidative etching of the graphene lattice. Novel
interfacial polymerization is used to seal tears and unwanted defects in graphene. The resulting centimeterscale
monolayer graphene membranes with high-density of sub-nanometer nanopores not only allow high
water permeance (upto 23 times higher than conventional membranes), but also show an excellent rejection
of salt ions and organic molecules (~100% rejection). Our work provides a facile and scalable approach for
atomically thin desalination and nanofiltration membranes.
pore size distribution for efficient ionic /molecular separations. Monolayer graphene with uniform distribution of
high-density of sub-nanometer pores has been considered as the perfect material offering ultra-fast water
permeance and high solute rejection. However, scalable production of graphene membranes with control over
sub-nanometer pores remains challenging. Here, we report the fabrication of large-area nanoporous graphene
membrane for high-efficiency water desalination. The density of defects that manifest as small nanopores in
graphene is significantly increased via facile and scalable oxidative etching of the graphene lattice. Novel
interfacial polymerization is used to seal tears and unwanted defects in graphene. The resulting centimeterscale
monolayer graphene membranes with high-density of sub-nanometer nanopores not only allow high
water permeance (upto 23 times higher than conventional membranes), but also show an excellent rejection
of salt ions and organic molecules (~100% rejection). Our work provides a facile and scalable approach for
atomically thin desalination and nanofiltration membranes.
References:
Cheng et al. NanoLetters 2020
Kidambi et al. Adv. Mat. 2018
Kidambi et al. Adv. Mat. 2018
Kidambi et al. ACS App. Mat. Int. 2018
Kidambi et al. Adv. Mat. 2017
Kidambi et al. Adv. Mat. 2017
Kidambi et al. Nanoscale 2017