Highly stable graphene-oxide-based membranes with superior permeability.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29662053.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03919-0 and PMC identifier 5902455.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Increasing fresh water demand for drinking and agriculture is one of the grand challenges of our age. Graphene oxide (GO) membranes have shown a great potential for desalination and water purification. However, it is challenging to further improve the water permeability without sacrificing the separation efficiency, and the GO membranes are easily delaminated in aqueous solutions within few hours. Here, we report a class of reduced GO membranes with enlarged interlayer distance fabricated by using theanine amino acid and tannic acid as reducing agent and cross-linker. Such membranes show water permeance over 10,000 L m<sup>-2</sup> h<sup>-1</sup> bar<sup>-1</sup>, which is 10-1000 times higher than those of previously reported GO-based membranes and commercial membranes, and good separation efficiency, e.g., rhodamine B and methylene blue rejection of ~100%. Moreover, they show no damage or delamination in water, acid, and basic solutions even after months.