High-flux water desalination with interfacial salt sieving effect in nanoporous carbon composite membranes

• Published in: Nature nanotechnology Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 345 - 350
• Main Authors: Chen, Wei, Chen, Shuyu, Liang, Tengfei, Zhang, Qiang, Fan, Zhongli, Yin, Hang, Huang, Kuo-Wei, Zhang, Xixiang, Lai, Zhiping, Sheng, Ping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.04.2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/166/898; 639/925/357/73; Benchmarks; Carbon; Carbon fiber reinforced plastics; Ceramic fibers; Chemical potential; Chemistry and Materials Science; Desalination; Energy consumption; Fluctuations; Flux; Latent heat; Materials Science; Membranes; Molecular dynamics; Nanotechnology; Nanotechnology and Microengineering; Smoothness; Substrates; Thermal conductivity

Freshwater flux and energy consumption are two important benchmarks for the membrane desalination process. Here, we show that nanoporous carbon composite membranes, which comprise a layer of porous carbon fibre structures grown on a porous ceramic substrate, can exhibit 100% desalination and a fresh...