Graphene oxide membranes for ion separation: Detailed studies on the effects of fabricating conditions

Abstract

Graphene oxide (GO) membrane has potential application in desalination process. In this paper, vacuum filtration was employed to prepare GO membrane on the mixed cellulose support membrane, which had caused widespread concern due to its efficiency, simplicity, and uniform thickness of the prepared membrane. Our goal is to explore the optimal preparation conditions of GO membrane that we can get a membrane with high permeation performance. Here, the performance of pure GO membranes prepared in different conditions were described in detail, which would create an unexpected value for the stability of GO membrane permeation properties and its practical application. In addition, we obtained a high-performance GO membrane at a low pressure, which had a higher flux (∼70 L m−2 h−1) and surprising retention of sodium sulfate (1 g L−1, above 90%). It does demonstrate that GO membrane has great potential in nanofiltration process.