New avenues for the large-scale harvesting of blue energy

Siria, Alessandro; Bocquet, Marie‐Laure; Bocquet, Lydéric

doi:10.1038/s41570-017-0091

Cited by 455 publications

(475 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…One method used to retrieve salinity gradient energy by mixing brine and fresh water with dense polymeric permselective membranes, termed reverse electrodialysis, was firstly proposed by Weinstein and Leitz. [8] Recently, inspired by the exceptional ion transport properties, ion-channelmimetic nanofluidic systems in solid-state materials become an intriguing research area in energy conversion and storage. In nature, many living organisms use ionic channels and pumps on cell membrane to efficiently convert intracellular salt concentration gradient into electric impulses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anomalous Pore‐Density Dependence in Nanofluidic Osmotic Power Generation

Tang

et al. 2018

Chin. J. Chem.

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Osmotic power generation in biomimetic nanofluidic systems has attracted considerable research interest owing to the enhanced performance and long-term stability. Towards practical applications, when extrapolating the materials from single-nanopore to multi-pore membranes, conventional viewpoint suggests that, to gain high electric power density, the porosity should be as high as possible. However, recent experimental observations show that the commonly-used linear amplification method largely overestimates the actual performance, particularly at high pore density. Herein, we provide a theoretical investigation to understand the reason. We find a counterintuitive pore-density dependence in high porosity nanofluidic systems that, once the pore density approaches more than 1×10 9 pores/cm 2 , the overall output electric power goes down with the increasing pore density. The excessively high pore density impairs the charge selectivity and induces strong ion concentration polarization, which undermines the osmotic power generation process. By optimizing the geometric size of the nanopores, the performance degradation can be effectively relieved. These findings clarify the origin of the unsatisfactory performance of the current osmotic nanofluidic power sources, and provide insights to further optimize the device.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anomalous Pore‐Density Dependence in Nanofluidic Osmotic Power Generation

Tang

et al. 2018

Chin. J. Chem.

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“…Hydrated ions at charged interfaces are ubiquitous and play a critical role in our daily life ranging from the control of neurological action, protein folding, to clean energy and water production [1][2][3][4] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Cation-controlled wetting properties of vermiculite membranes and its promise for fouling resistant oil–water separation

et al. 2020

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The surface free energy is one of the most fundamental properties of solids, hence, manipulating the surface energy and thereby the wetting properties of solids, has tremendous potential for various physical, chemical, biological as well as industrial processes. Typically, this is achieved by either chemical modification or by controlling the hierarchical structures of surfaces. Here we report a phenomenon whereby the wetting properties of vermiculite laminates are controlled by the hydrated cations on the surface and in the interlamellar space.We find that by exploiting this mechanism, vermiculite laminates can be tuned from superhydrophillic to hydrophobic simply by exchanging the cations; hydrophilicity decreases with increasing cation hydration free energy, except for lithium. Lithium, which has a higher hydration free energy than potassium, is found to provide a superhydrophilic surface due to its anomalous hydrated structure at the vermiculite surface. Building on these findings, we demonstrate the potential application of superhydrophilic lithium exchanged vermiculite as a

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“…If connected to an external load, a permselective membrane can convert the osmotic energy from a concentration difference to electrical energy. If the membranes are stacked in a way of alternating permselectivity, it forms the process of reverse electrodialysis [10,21,28,29]. The power density of this conversion is the product of the electric current density and the potential difference across the membrane, which is the membrane potential at open-circuit condition, i.e., zero electric current.…”

Section: Energy Generation From Concentration Differencementioning

confidence: 99%

Theory of Ion and Water Transport in Electron-Conducting Membrane Pores with p H-Dependent Chemical Charge

Zhang¹,

Biesheuvel²,

Ryzhkov

2019

Phys. Rev. Applied

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In this work, we develop an extended uniform potential (UP) model for a membrane nanopore by including two different charging mechanisms of the pore walls, namely by electronic charge and by chemical charge. These two charging mechanisms will generally occur in polymeric membranes with conducting agents, or membranes made of conducting materials like carbon nanotubes with surface ionizable groups. The electronic charge redistributes along the pore in response to the gradient of electric potential in the pore, while the chemical charge depends on the local pH via a Langmuir-type isotherm. The extended UP model shows good agreement with experimental data for membrane potential measured at zero current condition. When both types of charge are present, the ratio of the electronic charge to the chemical charge can be characterized by the dimensionless number of surface groups and the dimensionless capacitance of the dielectric Stern layer. The performance of the membrane pore in converting osmotic energy from a salt concentration difference into electrical power can be improved by tuning the electronic charge.

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New avenues for the large-scale harvesting of blue energy

Cited by 455 publications

References 56 publications

Anomalous Pore‐Density Dependence in Nanofluidic Osmotic Power Generation

Anomalous Pore‐Density Dependence in Nanofluidic Osmotic Power Generation

Cation-controlled wetting properties of vermiculite membranes and its promise for fouling resistant oil–water separation

Theory of Ion and Water Transport in Electron-Conducting Membrane Pores with p H-Dependent Chemical Charge

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