Pressure-driven ultrafiltration membranes are important in separation applications. Advanced filtration membranes with high permeance and enhanced rejection must be developed to meet rising worldwide demand. Here we report nanostrand-channelled graphene oxide ultrafiltration membranes with a network of nanochannels with a narrow size distribution (3-5 nm) and superior separation performance. This permeance offers a 10-fold enhancement without sacrificing the rejection rate compared with that of graphene oxide membranes, and is more than 100 times higher than that of commercial ultrafiltration membranes with similar rejection. The flow enhancement is attributed to the porous structure and significantly reduced channel length. An abnormal pressure-dependent separation behaviour is also reported, where the elastic deformation of nanochannels offers tunable permeation and rejection. The water flow through these hydrophilic graphene oxide nanochannels is identified as viscous. This nanostrand-channelling approach is also extendable to other laminate membranes, providing potential for accelerating separation and water-purification processes.

Water transport through graphene-derived membranes has gained much interest recently due to its promising potential in filtration and separation applications. In this work, we explore water permeation in graphene oxide membranes using atomistic simulations and theoretical analysis, by considering flow through the interlayer gallery, expanded channels such as wrinkles of interedge spaces, and pores within the sheet. We find that, although flow enhancement can be established by nanoconfinement, fast water transport through pristine graphene channels is prohibited by a prominent side-pinning effect from capillaries formed within oxidized regions. We then discuss several flow enhancement mechanisms through the porous microstructures of graphene oxide membranes. These understandings are integrated into a complete picture to understand water permeation through the layer-by-layer and porous microstructure and can guide rational design of functional membranes for energy and environmental applications.

Graphene is an outstanding material with ultrahigh thermal conductivity. Its thermal transfer properties under various strains are studied by reverse nonequilibrium molecular dynamics. Based on the unique two-dimensional structure of graphene, the distinctive geometries of graphene sheets and graphene nanoribbons with large flexibility and their intriguing thermal properties are demonstrated under strains. For example, the corrugation under uniaxial compression and helical structure under light torsion, as well as tube-like structure under strong torsion, exhibit enormously different thermal conductivity. The important robustness of thermal conductivity is found in the corrugated and helical configurations of graphene nanoribbons. Nevertheless, thermal conductivity of graphene is very sensitive to tensile strain. The relationship among phonon frequency, strain and thermal conductivity are analyzed. A similar trend line of phonon frequency dependence of thermal conductivity is observed for armchair graphene nanoribbons and zigzag graphene nanoribbons. The unique thermal properties of graphene nanoribbons under strains suggest their great potentials for nanoscale thermal managements and thermoelectric applications.

Fast slip flow was identified for water inside the interlayer gallery between graphene layers or carbon nanotubes. We report here that this significant flow rate enhancement (over two orders) breaks down with the presence of chemical functionalization and relaxation of nanoconfinement in graphene oxides. Molecular dynamics simulation results show that hydrodynamics applies in this circumstance, even at length scales down to nanometers. However, corrections to the slip boundary condition and apparent viscosity of nanoconfined flow must be included to make quantitative predictions. These results were discussed with the structural characteristics of liquid water and hydrogen-bond networks.

As a new two-dimensional (2D) material, phosphorene has drawn growing attention owing to its novel electronic properties, such as layer-dependent direct bandgaps and high carrier mobility. Herein we investigate the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities of single- and multi-layer phosphorene, focusing on geometrical (sample size, orientation and layer number) and strain (compression and tension) effects. A strong anisotropy is found in the in-plane thermal conductivity with its value along the zigzag direction being much higher than that along the armchair direction. Interestingly, the in-plane thermal conductivity of multi-layer phosphorene is insensitive to the layer number, which is in strong contrast to that of graphene where the interlayer interactions strongly influence the thermal transport. Surprisingly, tensile strain leads to an anomalous increase in the in-plane thermal conductivity of phosphorene, in particular in the armchair direction. Both the in-plane and cross-plane thermal conductivities can be modulated by external strain; however, the strain modulation along the cross-plane direction is more effective and thus more tunable than that along the in-plane direction. Our findings here are of great importance for the thermal management in phosphorene-based nanoelectronic devices and for thermoelectric applications of phosphorene.