Multilayer Nanoporous Graphene as a Water Purification Membrane

Abstract

Porous graphene sheets can be considered as an ultrathin membrane in reverse osmosis water desalination processes. In this paper, employing the molecular dynamics simulation method, the performance of multilayer porous graphene membranes with different pore sizes, layer separation, and layer number were investigated. We found that salt rejection and water flux through the membrane significantly depend on the graphene pore size and number of graphene layers, and controlling these parameters could improve the filtration process. It was shown that our 2-layer designed graphene membranes with the pore radius of 3.3 Å and layer separation of 20 Å, can reject more than 86% of ions. Also, no filtration process had occurred for graphene layer separation less than 5 Å. The results of this study that are described by ion hydration radius and water velocity distributions can be used to improve the knowledge of water desalination at the molecular level, which leads to design more efficient multilayer graphene membranes for water purification.