High permeability sub-nanometre sieve composite MoS<sub>2</sub> membranes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32488183.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-16577-y and PMC identifier 7265532.
- 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
Two-dimensional membranes have gained enormous interest due to their potential to deliver precision filtration of species with performance that can challenge current desalination membrane platforms. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS<sub>2</sub>) laminar membranes have recently demonstrated superior stability in aqueous environment to their extensively-studied analogs graphene-based membranes; however, challenges such as low ion rejection for high salinity water, low water flux, and low stability over time delay their potential adoption as a viable technology. Here, we report composite laminate multilayer MoS<sub>2</sub> membranes with stacked heterodimensional one- to two-layer-thick porous nanosheets and nanodisks. These membranes have a multimodal porous network structure with tunable surface charge, pore size, and interlayer spacing. In forward osmosis, our membranes reject more than 99% of salts at high salinities and, in reverse osmosis, small-molecule organic dyes and salts are efficiently filtered. Finally, our membranes stably operate for over a month, implying their potential for use in commercial water purification applications.