Tailoring the molecular structure of crosslinked polymers for pervaporation desalination

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 1461 - 9
• Main Authors: Xue, Yun Long, Huang, Jin, Lau, Cher Hon, Cao, Bing, Li, Pei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 19.03.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/923/1028; 639/638/298/923/1028; 639/705/1042; Brackish water; Crosslinking; Desalination; Distillation; Fluxes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Membranes; Molecular dynamics; Molecular structure; multidisciplinary; Nanocomposites; Nanofibers; Pervaporation; Polymers; Saline water; Salt rejection; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Seawater; Stability; Thin films; Tradeoffs; Transportation; Water scarcity

Polymer crosslinking imbues chemical stability to thin films at the expense of lower molecular transportation rates. Here in this work we deployed molecular dynamics simulations to optimise the selection of crosslinking compounds that overcome this trade-off relationship. We validated these simulati...