Wetting-Induced Water Promoted Flow on Tunable Liquid–Liquid Interface-Based Nanopore Membrane System

Abstract

Membrane separation provides effective methods for solving the global water crisis. Contemporary membrane systems depend on interfacial interactions between liquid and solid membrane matrixes. However, it may lead to a limiting permeate flux due to the large flow resistance at hydrophobic liquid–solid interfaces. Herein, the liquid–liquid interface with improved interface energy is reversibly introduced in membrane systems to boost wetting and reduce transport resistance. A series of interfaces were systematically explored to reveal mechanisms of wetting and boosted flow performances, which are further supported by simulations. Findings of this study highlight that interfacial liquids with lower surface energies, lower viscosities, and higher solubilities can effectively improve water flow without sacrificing rejection performance, achieving by transforming a solid–liquid interface into liquid–liquid interface interaction. It provides a concept to design advanced membrane systems for water purification (e.g., desalination and oil–water separation) and energy conversion processes.

Shape and Stiffness Switchable Hydroplastic Wood with Programmability and Reproducibility

“…Based on the previous analysis, it was initially hypothesized that the utilization of cyclohexane as the interfacial wetting agent would result in a comparatively lower elastic modulus. However, the inherent immiscibility between cyclohexane and water led to an increase in the contact angle between the modified wood and softening reagent, 29 resulting in an increase in interfacial resistance in turn (Figure S4, Videos S3 and S4). Consequently, the facile penetration of the softening reagent into the wood was impeded, leading to a challenging softening process (elastic modulus: 998.6 kPa).…”

Super-strong and flexible wood through cell wall swelling-assisted spontaneously fibers aggregation

“…Firstly, deligni cation solution rapidly throughout wood lumens and vessels, allowing the sul te ions and anthrahydroquinone dianions under alkaline conditions to attack the β-aromatic ether bonds of lignin, which caused the lignin macromolecular chains quickly decompose into soluble small molecular fragments 38 . The addition of methanol with low surface energy and low viscosity reduced the Laplace resistance at the interface between wood and water, which greatly enhanced the penetration ux of deligni cation solution to the wood, thus achieving a uniform deligni cation process 39 . Furthermore, the recessive reducing terminal group on C1 of cellulose chains could be selectively oxidized by anthraquinone to form carboxyl groups.…”

A Nanoconfined Water–Ion Coordination Network for Flexible Energy‐Dissipation Devices

“…Confining water in nanoenvironments has yielded a wide variety of unprecedented properties beyond the free bulk phase. [1][2][3][4][5] Particularly, with a sub-10 nm confinement dimension approaching the molecular size, the enormous surface-to-volume ratio significantly promotes the interaction between the confined water molecules and the solid nanochannel, [6] substantially altering the properties of water, for example, ultra-fast transport properties, [7][8][9][10][11] extreme phasetransition temperature, [12] anomalously low dielectric constant, [13] and suppressed oscillation of surface energy. [14] Compared with confined sole water molecules, introducing ions may alter the coordination of water molecules, [15,16] leading to substantially different structural and dynamic properties of confined water.…”