Implications of Permeation through Intrinsic Defects in Graphene on the Design of Defect-Tolerant Membranes for Gas Separation

Boutilier, Michael S. H.; Sun, Chengzhen; O’Hern, Sean C.; Au, Harold; Hadjiconstantinou, Nicolas G.; Karnik, Rohit

doi:10.1021/nn405537u

Cited by 185 publications

(207 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Ideally, a monolayer graphene membrane should possess only homogenously sized pores at high density. However, intrinsic and extrinsic defects formed during growth and graphene transfer processes, 28,47,48 respectively, act as leakage pathways and hinder the practical realization of graphene monolayer membranes. Accordingly, such defects must be sealed or blocked or molecular permeation through them should be hampered.…”

Section: Graphene Desalination Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Graphene membranes for water desalination

2017

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Extensive environmental pollution caused by worldwide industrialization and population growth has led to a water shortage. This problem lowers the quality of human life and wastes a large amount of money worldwide each year due to the related consequences. One main solution for this challenge is water purification. State-of-the-art water purification necessitates the implementation of novel materials and technologies that are cost and energy efficient. In this regard, graphene nanomaterials, with their unique physicochemical properties, are an optimum choice. These materials offer extraordinarily high surface area, mechanical durability, atomic thickness, nanosized pores and reactivity toward polar and non-polar water pollutants. These characteristics impart high selectivity and water permeability, and thus provide excellent water purification efficiency. This review introduces the potential of graphene membranes for water desalination. Although literature reviews have mostly concerned graphene's capability for the adsorption and photocatalysis of water pollutants, updated knowledge related to its sieving properties is quite limited. NPG Asia Materials (2017) 9, e427; doi:10.1038/am.2017.135; published online 25 August 2017 INTRODUCTION Currently,~1.2 billion people around the world are suffering from a shortage of water and its adverse consequences on health, food and energy. 1,2 On one hand, population growth, increased industrialization and greater energy needs and, on the other hand, loss of snowmelt, shrinkage of glaciers and so on will worsen this situation in upcoming years. As estimated by the world water council, the number of affected people will rise to 3.9 billion in the coming decades. 2,3 One of the most promising approaches to alleviate the water shortage, desalination can increase the water supply beyond what is available from the hydrological cycle. 4 Seawater desalination indeed provides an infinite, steady supply of high-quality water that does not harm natural freshwater ecosystems.Seawater comprises a vast supply of water (97.5% of all water on the planet). Thus, the growth of the installation of seawater desalination facilities in the past decade to circumvent water shortage problems in water-stressed countries has progressed quickly. In 2016, the global water production by desalination was estimated to be 38 billion cubic meter per year, that is, two times higher than that in 2008. 5 So far, seawater desalination has been mainly performed via multistage flash distillation and reverse osmosis (RO). 6 Mostly in the arid Persian Gulf countries, desalination plants perform based on heating and then condensing seawater. This kind of desalination plant consumes large amounts of thermal and electric energy, thus emitting greenhouse gases extensively. 7 In addition to this non-economical and non-ecofriendly version of desalination plants, the main type of desalination plants constructed in the past two decades, as well as future planned ones, are based on RO technology (Figure 1). 8

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Section: Graphene Desalination Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Graphene membranes for water desalination

2017

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“…There are some reports showing the membrane properties of pure graphene [34][35][36][37]. Pure graphene membrane without pores is highly impermeable due to the closely packed arrangement of carbon atoms in the lattice.…”

Section: Cnt Membranesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Graphene oxide: the new membrane material

Joshi

Alwarappan

Yoshimura

et al. 2015

Applied Materials Today

399

188

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a b s t r a c tA perfect molecular level separating unit for any kind of species to be filtered is on very high demand. In recent years, graphene oxide has emerged as an important material which can filter ions and molecules. This is an emerging field of research which has drawn extensive attention after the work by Nair et al.[1]. Following their work, various research groups started working in this area in last three years. Herein, we briefly review the recent development on graphene oxide membranes. This review is a summary of some very recent results and contributions made so far in this emerging research field. We have discussed recently developed mechanisms and models to understand the transport through GO based membranes. This review begins with a basic background on membrane technology followed by discussion related to developments of carbon materials based membrane technology. At the end we summarize advantages and disadvantages of membranes based on graphene oxide and discuss their future prospective.

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“…4,[9][10][11] Ideally, graphene would contain only uniformly-sized pores at high density, but intrinsic defects from the growth process and extrinsic defects from graphene transfer [12][13][14] form leakage pathways that make practical realization of graphene membranes extremely challenging. Despite remarkable advances including high-density pore creation, 13 gas selectivity across micrometer-sized graphene, 15 and membranes with large (>5 nm)…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[12][13][14] Mass transport measurements and electron microscopy show that this composite membrane contains nanometer-scale (~1-15 nm)…”

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confidence: 99%

Nanofiltration across Defect-Sealed Nanoporous Monolayer Graphene

et al. 2015

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Monolayer nanoporous graphene represents an ideal membrane for molecular separations, but its practical realization is impeded by leakage through defects in the ultrathin graphene. Here, we report a multiscale leakage− sealing process that exploits the nonpolar nature and impermeability of pristine graphene to selectively block defects, resulting in a centimeter-scale membrane that can separate two fluid reservoirs by an atomically thin layer of graphene. After introducing subnanometer pores in graphene, the membrane exhibited rejection of multivalent ions and small molecules and water flux consistent with prior molecular dynamics simulations. The results indicate the feasibility of constructing defect-tolerant monolayer graphene membranes for nanofiltration, desalination, and other separation processes.

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Implications of Permeation through Intrinsic Defects in Graphene on the Design of Defect-Tolerant Membranes for Gas Separation

Cited by 185 publications

References 19 publications

Graphene membranes for water desalination

Graphene membranes for water desalination

Graphene oxide: the new membrane material

Nanofiltration across Defect-Sealed Nanoporous Monolayer Graphene

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