Large-area graphene-based nanofiltration membranes by shear alignment of discotic nematic liquid crystals of graphene oxide

By Abozar Akbari, P. Sheath, Samuel T. Martin, D. Shinde, Mahdokht Shaibani, P. Banerjee, Rachel Tkacz, D. Bhattacharyya, M. Majumder. Nature Communications, 2016

646 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Graphene-based membranes demonstrating ultrafast water transport, precise molecular sieving of gas and solvated molecules shows great promise as novel separation platforms; however, scale-up of these membranes to large-areas remains an unresolved problem. Here we demonstrate that the discotic nematic phase of graphene oxide (GO) can be shear aligned to form highly ordered, continuous, thin films of multi-layered GO on a support membrane by an industrially adaptable method to produce large-area membranes (13 × 14 cm2) in <5 s. Pressure driven transport data demonstrate high retention (>90%) for charged and uncharged organic probe molecules with a hydrated radius above 5 Å as well as modest (30–40%) retention of monovalent and divalent salts. The highly ordered graphene sheets in the plane of the membrane make organized channels and enhance the permeability (71±5 l m−2 hr−1 bar−1 for 150±15 nm thick membranes). Membranes made from graphene have ultra-fast water transport and precise molecular sieving properties. Here, the authors show how large-area membranes can be manufactured by a rapid and scalable process based on shear alignment of graphene-oxide liquid crystals for unlocking industrial applications.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3021b0a41712524f25335d76ffb4805fa1990892

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Citations in the corpus

Towards sustainable ultrafast molecular-separation membranes: From conventional polymers to emerging materials (2018, methodology): “Materials type Fabrication method Advantages Technology readiness level Typical references Polymers Porous polymers (NF) Evaporating-coating High selectivity & high permeance to heptane Medium [17] Polymers with nanochannels etched by nanostrands (UF) Filtration-coating Ultra high permeability Mediu”
Outlook for graphene-based desalination membranes (2018, methodology): “The membrane is made by using a newly developed viscous form of GO finely and lightly spread with a blade.(39) The methodology is claimed to be faster while permitting larger sizes.”
Water on graphene: review of recent progress (2018, background): “Water transport through graphene opens up new opportunities for multiple applications of graphenebased membranes in molecular sieving [18, 38, 39], water filtration [40], purification and desalination of water [17, 41, 42].”