Ultrafast Viscous Permeation of Organic Solvents Through Diamond-Like Carbon Nanosheets

Abstract

Chemical, petrochemical, energy, and environment-related industries strongly require high-performance nanofiltration membranes applicable to organic solvents. To achieve high solvent permeability, filtration membranes must be as thin as possible, while retaining mechanical strength and solvent resistance. Here, we report on the preparation of ultrathin free-standing amorphous carbon membranes with Young's moduli of 90 to 170 gigapascals. The membranes can separate organic dyes at a rate three orders of magnitude greater than that of commercially available membranes. Permeation experiments revealed that the hard carbon layer has hydrophobic pores of ~1 nanometer, which allow the ultrafast viscous permeation of organic solvents through the membrane.

Ultrafast viscous water flow through nanostrand-channelled graphene oxide membranes

“…Because of their unique physical and chemical properties, nanomaterials have been used to construct novel functional nanostructured membranes [3][4][5] . Recently, we constructed ultrathin nanoporous membranes with cross-linked protein for ultrafast water permeation 6 and ultrathin diamond-like carbon membranes for fast separation of molecules from organic solvents 7 . Ideally, an efficient ultrafast membrane should be as thin as possible to maximize the permeance, be robust enough to withstand the applied pressure and have a narrow distribution of pore size for excellent selectivity.…”

Polymer nanofilms with enhanced microporosity by interfacial polymerization

“…There are two main strategies being followed to this end. One is to design the polymer structure at the molecular level so as to provide greater interconnected microporosity 3-10 , whilst a second approach is to reduce the thickness of the separating layer to nanometre scale [11][12][13][14][15][16] .…”

“…There are two main strategies being followed to this end. One is to design the polymer structure at the molecular level so as to provide greater interconnected microporosity 3-10 , whilst a second approach is to reduce the thickness of the separating layer to nanometre scale [11][12][13][14][15][16] .Microporous organic materials with well-defined pore structure are excellent candidates for highly permeable and selective membranes 1 , such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and porous coordination polymers (PCPs) [17][18] , covalent organic frameworks (COFs) [19][20] , and porous organic cages 2 (POCs) [21][22][23] . However, the fabrication of these crystalline solids to form defect-free membranes is technically challenging.…”

The Separation Power of Nanotubes in Membranes: A Review

“…Isoporous membranes in which the nanotubes are used as transport channels are reported by Karan et al [140]. They developed self-standing carbon layers with hydrophobic pores in the order of 1 nm, which can be used for solvent separations on molecular level.…”