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Fast water transport and molecular sieving through ultrathin ordered conjugated-polymer-framework membranes

Nature Materials volume 21, pages 1183–1190 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

The development of membranes that block solutes while allowing rapid water transport is of great importance. The microstructure of the membrane needs to be rationally designed at the molecular level to achieve precise molecular sieving and high water flux simultaneously. We report the design and fabrication of ultrathin, ordered conjugated-polymer-framework (CPF) films with thicknesses down to 1 nm via chemical vapour deposition and their performance as separation membranes. Our CPF membranes inherently have regular rhombic sub-nanometre (10.3 × 3.7 Å) channels, unlike membranes made of carbon nanotubes or graphene, whose separation performance depends on the alignment or stacking of materials. The optimized membrane exhibited a high water/NaCl selectivity of ∼6,900 and water permeance of ∼112 mol m−2 h−1 bar−1, and salt rejection >99.5% in high-salinity mixed-ion separations driven by osmotic pressure. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed that water molecules quickly and collectively pass through the membrane by forming a continuous three-dimensional network within the hydrophobic channels. The advent of ordered CPF provides a route towards developing carbon-based membranes for precise molecular separation.

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Fig. 1: Synthesis and characterization of sCPF films.
Fig. 2: Selective water and ion transport.
Fig. 3: Molecular simulations of water transport through the sCPF membrane.
Fig. 4: Comparison of separation mechanisms of sCPF and pCPF.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

The financial support for this work was provided by Baseline Funds (BAS/1/1372-01-01) to Y.H. from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), to J.J. from the A*STAR AME IRG Grant (A20E5c0092), the Ministry of Education of Singapore and the National University of Singapore (R-279-000-598-114 and R-279-000-574-114). This work was also partially supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (2022YFE0113800). V.T. and Y.C. are indebted to the support from the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) under award number OSR-2018-CARF/CCF-3079. V.T. acknowledges support from KAUST Solar Center (KSC). This research used resources of the Core Laboratories of KAUST. We acknowledge helpful discussions with Q. Li and J. Wang from Soochow University; J. Yin, Y. Wan and L. Chen from KAUST, and Y. Zhang from Nanjing Tech University.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jie Shen, Yichen Cai, Chenhui Zhang, Wan Wei.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Physical Sciences and Engineering Division (PSE), Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials (AMPM) Center, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Jie Shen, Cailing Chen, Yingge Wang, Xinglong Dong, Jiaqiang Li, Ingo Pinnau & Yu Han

  2. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Physical Sciences and Engineering Division (PSE), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Yichen Cai, Chenhui Zhang, Yinchang Ma, Chien-Chih Tseng, Jui-Han Fu, Xi-Xiang Zhang & Vincent Tung

  3. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Wan Wei, Kuiwei Yang & Jianwen Jiang

  4. Multi-scale Porous Materials Center, Institute of Advanced Inter-disciplinary Studies & School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China

    Lingmei Liu

  5. Department of Chemical System Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Chien-Chih Tseng, Jui-Han Fu & Vincent Tung

  6. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, P. R. China

    Lain-Jong Li

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Contributions

Y.H., V.T. and J.J. conceived and designed the experiments. J.S, Y.C., C.Z., C.C., L.L., Y.M., X.D., J.-H.F., C.-C.T. and J.L. performed the synthesis of CPF materials, characterizations and transport measurements. W.W. performed the molecular dynamics simulations and K.Y. conducted the density-functional theory calculations. Y.W., I.P., X.Z. and L.L. provided constructive opinion and suggestions. All authors were involved in the analysis and discussion of the results. Y.H., J.J., V.T. and I.P. wrote the manuscript and all authors commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jianwen Jiang, Ingo Pinnau, Vincent Tung or Yu Han.

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Nature Materials thanks Damien Voiry, Xiwang Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–34, Tables 1–4, notes 1–3 and references 1–83.

Supplementary Video 1

Water molecules moving in the channels to form a regular 3D network inside the membrane.

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Source Data for Figures 1d–1g.

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Source Data for Figure 2d.

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Source Data for Figures 4c, 4e and 4f.

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Shen, J., Cai, Y., Zhang, C. et al. Fast water transport and molecular sieving through ultrathin ordered conjugated-polymer-framework membranes. Nat. Mater. 21, 1183–1190 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01325-y

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