(344c) Tuning the Interlayer Channels of GO Membranes for Molecule or Ion Transport

Graphene is a well-known two-dimensional (2D) material that exhibits preeminent electrical, mechanical and thermal properties owing to its unique one-atom-thick structure. Graphene and its derivatives (e.g., graphene oxide (GO)) have become emerging nano-building blocks for separation membranes featuring distinct laminar structures and tunable physicochemical properties. Extraordinary molecular separation properties for purifying water and gases have been demonstrated by graphene-based membranes, which have attracted a huge surge of interest during the past few years.^{[1, 2]}

This talk will give an overview of our recent progresses on graphene-based membranes for molecular separation, with a focus on our attempts on the design and control of fast and selective channels within the membrane. We demonstrate a scalable fabrication of graphene oxide (GO) membranes on ceramic hollow fiber substrate and showed good pervaporation dehydration of aqueous organic solution.^[3] Moreover, a novel bio-inspired strategy is proposed to utilize the synergistic effect of a hydrophilic polymer and GO laminates to realize fast water-transport channels for constructing high-efficiency membrane.^[4] For gas separation, we design a novel type of membrane with fast and selective gas-transport channels of GO laminates enabled by polymer-GO hydrogen bonding,^[5] showing excellent CO₂ permeation performance. Several strategies including the facile spray-evaporation and integrated external forces driven assembly approaches are proposed to precisely manipulate the GO membranes with highly ordered 2D microstructure for precise molecular gas separation.^[6] Recent studies also show excellent ionic separation using GO-based membranes.^[7] Future efforts should be taken to further develop high-quality graphene-based membranes with good structural stability for practical application.

References

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• Huang, W. Jin, et al., Adv. Funct. Mater., 25 (2015) 5809–5815.
• Shen, W. Jin, et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 54 (2015) 578-582.
• Shen, W. Jin, et al., ACS Nano, 10 (2016) 3398-3409.
• Chen, M. Wu., W. Jin, J. Li, H. Fang, et al., Nature, 550 (2017) 380-383.