Tunable C2N Membrane for High Efficient Water Desalination.

Yanmei Yang,Weifeng Li,Hongcai Zhou,Xiaoming Zhang,Mingwen Zhao

doi:10.1038/srep29218

Yanmei Yang, Weifeng Li + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29218

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Journal: Scientific Reports	Publication Date: Jul 7, 2016
Citations: 70	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Soochow University, Shandong University

Abstract

Water scarcity represents one of the most serious global problems of our time and challenges the advancements in desalination techniques. Although water-filtering architectures based on graphene have greatly advanced the approach to high performance desalination membranes, the controlled-generation of nanopores with particular diameter is tricky and has stunted its wide applications. Here, through molecular dynamic simulations and first-principles calculations, we propose that the recently reported graphene-like carbon nitride (g-C2N) monolayer can serve as high efficient filters for water desalination. Taking the advantages of the intrisic nanoporous structure and excellent mechanical properties of g-C2N, high water transparency and strong salt filtering capability have been demonstrated in our simulations. More importantly, the “open” and “closed” states of the g-C2N filter can be precisely regulated by tensile strain. It is found that the water permeability of g-C2N is significantly higher than that reported for graphene filters by almost one order of magnitude. In the light of the abundant family of graphene-like carbon nitride monolayered materials, our results thus offer a promising approach to the design of high efficient filteration architectures.

Highlights

Water scarcity represents one of the most serious global problems of our time and challenges the advancements in desalination techniques
Through molecular dynamic simulations and first-principles calculations, we propose that the recently reported graphene-like carbon nitride (g-C2N) monolayer can serve as high efficient filters for water desalination
The high water transparency and vigorous salt filtering capability are attributed to the steric hindrance and electrostatic interactions on the translocations of water molecules and ions through nanoscaled confinements

Summary

Introduction

Water scarcity represents one of the most serious global problems of our time and challenges the advancements in desalination techniques. Water-filtering architectures based on graphene have greatly advanced the approach to high performance desalination membranes, the controlledgeneration of nanopores with particular diameter is tricky and has stunted its wide applications. Through molecular dynamic simulations and first-principles calculations, we propose that the recently reported graphene-like carbon nitride (g-C2N) monolayer can serve as high efficient filters for water desalination. Thanks to the ultrathin thickness (only one atomic layer) of graphene, the energy consumption in seawater desalination is greatly reduced because water flux scales inversely with the filter thickness This approach may works for other two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as such as hexagonal boron nitride[9], silicene[10,11], phosphorene[12,13,14,15] and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)[16]. The intrisic porous structure implies high prospect of using porous g-C2N monolayer as desalination filter without post-treatment to generate nanopores

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Conclusion