Freestanding ultrathin rGO membranes, with thicknesses down to 17 nm, are fabricated via a facile approach using hydroiodic acid vapor and water-assisted delamination. These unique membranes provide the potential for addressing the key challenge that limits the performance of current forward osmosis membranes.

Efficient solar steam generation and concurrent salt harvesting from saline water were achieved with both continuous operation and long-term stability.

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Graphene-based laminar membranes open new avenues for water treatment; in particular, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membranes with high stability in aqueous solutions are gaining increased attention for desalination. However, the low water permeability of these membranes significantly limits their applications. In this study, the water permeability of thermally reduced GO membrane was increased by a factor of 26 times by creating in-plane nanopores with an average diameter of ∼3 nm and a high density of 2.89 × 10 15 m −2 via H 2 O 2 oxidation. These in-plane nanopores provide additional transport channels and shorten the transport distance for water molecules. Meanwhile, salt rejection of this membrane is dominated by both the Donnan effect and the size exclusion of the interspaces. Besides, the water permeability and salt rejection of the thermally reduced nanoporous GO membrane can also be simply tuned by adjusting the thermal treatment time and membrane thickness. Additionally, the fabricated membrane exhibited a relatively stable rejection of Na 2 SO 4 during the long-term testing. This work demonstrates a novel and effective strategy for fabricating high-performance laminar rGO membranes for desalination applications.

A hierarchical TiO2 nanowire@MoS2 nanosheet nanocomposite is synthesized by a facile glucose-assisted hydrothermal approach and exhibits synergistic lithium storage properties with improved electrochemical performance.

Ultrathin ZIF-8 membranes with a thickness of around 200 nm were prepared by chemical vapour modification of surface chemistry and nanopores of an asymmetric bromomethylated poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (BPPO) substrate. The resulting ZIF-8 membranes exhibited exceptional H2 permeance as high as 2.05 × 10(-6) mol m(-2) s(-1) Pa(-1) with high H2/N2 and H2/CO2 selectivities (9.7 and 12.8, respectively).

A simple carbonization of evaporation‐induced self‐assembled iron(III) porphyrin (FeP) layers uniformly coated on carbon black, leading to an unprecedented core/shell structured nonprecious metal electrocatalysts (NPMEs) composed of N‐doped graphene‐like layers uniformly coated on carbon is reported. The thickness of graphene‐like shell can be readily adjusted up to about 6.6 nm by varying the amount of FeP loaded on carbon. Interestingly, the obtained NPME exhibits one of the highest oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity in both alkaline (half‐wave potential of 0.87 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode‐RHE) and acidic (half‐wave potential of 0.75 V vs RHE) medium. In particular, the core/shell structured NPME demonstrates a remarkable durability in acidic conditions superior to that of commercial Pt/C, which likely comes from the exposure of inner active sites after the outermost layer is consumed. Furthermore, the core/shell NPME displays direct 4e and indirect 4e process toward ORR in alkaline and acidic medium, respectively. This study points out a new avenue for the design of high‐performance NPMEs in both alkaline and acidic media, which may have potential applications in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), metal‐air batteries, and electrolyzers.

A novel thin-film nanocomposite forward-osmosis (FO) membrane was fabricated on hydrophilic nylon microfiltration (MF) support by interfacial polymerization with the assistance of an intermediate layer of graphene oxide and multiwall carbon nanotube (GO/MWCNT). The chemical composition, structure, and surface properties of the synthesized FO membranes were studied using various characterization methods. It was found that the GO/MWCNT composite layer not only provided ultrafast nanochannels for water transport but also reduced the thickness of the polyamide layer by up to 60%. As a result, the novel FO membrane exhibited a higher water flux and lower reverse salt flux compared with the membrane synthesized without the GO/MWCNT intermediate layer. This method offers promising opportunities to fabricate thin-film composite membranes on microfiltration substrates for FO application with inhibited concentration polarization phenomenon and expected separation performance.