Ionization Engineered Two-dimensional Confined Channels in GO Membranes
Enable High-efficiency OH- Separation
Abstract
The development of the OH- sieving membranes is of extraordinary
importance but challenging for treating alkaline effluents. Here, we
propose the ionization engineering concept of two-dimensional (2D)
laminated membranes to pursue promising OH- separation. This concept is
exemplified via stacking the self-designed sulfonated graphene oxide
(SGO) nanosheets to fabricate 2D membranes. The SGO membranes achieve
synergetic improvements of OH- dialysis coefficients and separation
factors towards the simulated NaOH/Na2WO4 alkaline wastewater in sharp
contrast to the 2D GO membranes and the commonly adopted polymeric
cation exchange membranes. Besides, the separation factor of the SGO
membranes is far higher than most the existing alkali recovery
membranes. The molecular dynamics simulation results hint the
high-efficiency OH- separation originates from the 2D SGO confined
channels, where the dehydration effects and intensified electrostatic
repulsion jointly play critical roles. This study offers an alternative
strategy to achieve fast OH- sieving by ionizing 2D confined channels.