Abstract
A simple fabrication program of graphene oxide (GO) membranes was developed in this work. The GO membranes exhibit ultrahigh water permeances together with high multivalent ion rejection rates.
Highlights
Water purification is an attractive pathway to fresh water[1,2], and membrane technologies, one of the most important energy-efficient and environmentally friendly strategies for water treatment, have attracted intensive interest in recent years[3,4]
Graphene oxide (GO) membranes show exceptional molecular permeation properties and have gained tremendous attention in the area of wastewater treatment. They still suffer from some limitations, such as low water permeance when the ion rejection rate is at a satisfactory level and unstable performance
Water permeances were calculated by measuring the time required to collect 30 mL filtrate, and the corresponding concentrations of FeCl3, Pb(NO3)[2], ZnSO4 and CuSO4 in the filtrate were measured using inductive coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES)
Summary
Water purification is an attractive pathway to fresh water[1,2], and membrane technologies, one of the most important energy-efficient and environmentally friendly strategies for water treatment, have attracted intensive interest in recent years[3,4]. An ideal water treatment membrane should exhibit key performance benchmarks, including high water permeance with an efficient rejection rate and good stability[5,6,7]. A low water permeance when the ion rejection rate is large enough, together with unstable performance, limits the practical applications of GO membranes for water purification[34,35,36,37,38]. For some typical multivalent ions of Pb2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+, the modified GO membranes show high rejection rates of about 95%, 96%, 97% and 90%, respectively, the pure water permeance is only ~5.0 L m−2 h−1 bar−1)[39]. A large-area graphene nanomesh/single-walled carbon nanotube hybrid membrane possesses high rejection rates of about 92% for Mg2+, while the pure water permeance of the membrane is still moderate (20.6 L m−2 h−1 bar−1)[40]
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