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Multifunctional nanocoated membranes for high-rate electrothermal desalination of hypersaline waters

Nature Nanotechnology volume 15, pages 1025–1032 (2020)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 04 November 2020

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Abstract

Surface heating membrane distillation overcomes several limitations inherent in conventional membrane distillation technology. Here we report a successful effort to grow in situ a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) nanocoating on a stainless-steel wire cloth (hBN-SSWC), and its application as a scalable electrothermal heating material in surface heating membrane distillation. The novel hBN-SSWC provides superior vapour permeability, thermal conductivity, electrical insulation and anticorrosion properties, all of which are critical for the long-term surface heating membrane distillation performance, particularly with hypersaline solutions. By simply attaching hBN-SSWC to a commercial membrane and providing power with an a.c. supply at household frequency, we demonstrate that hBN-SSWC is able to support an ultrahigh power intensity (50 kW m−2) to desalinate hypersaline solutions with exceptionally high water flux (and throughput), single-pass water recovery and heat utilization efficiency while maintaining excellent material stability. We also demonstrate the exceptional performance of hBN-SSWC in a scalable and compact spiral-wound electrothermal membrane distillation module.

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Fig. 1: Hexagonal boron nitride as a multifunctional coating on SSWC in electrothermal SHMD.
Fig. 2: Growth of high-quality hBN nanocoatings on SSWC.
Fig. 3: The hBN-SSWC supports high-energy input in SHMD to realize high performance.
Fig. 4: The hBN-coating-enabled long-term operation of SSWC in SHMD.
Fig. 5: Magnified hBN-SSWC fabrication and its application in novel spiral-wound electrothermal SHMD.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The code utilized during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Change history

  • 04 November 2020

    An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (EEC-1449500) and the NSF I/UCRC Center for Atomically Thin Multifunctional Coatings (ATOMIC) under award number IIP-1539999.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Kuichang Zuo, Weipeng Wang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Kuichang Zuo, Ruikun Xin & Qilin Li

  2. NSF Nanosystems Engineering Research Center Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT), Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Kuichang Zuo, Weipeng Wang, Akshay Deshmukh, Ruikun Xin, Menachem Elimelech, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Jun Lou & Qilin Li

  3. Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Weipeng Wang, Shuai Jia, Hua Guo, Pulickel M. Ajayan, Jun Lou & Qilin Li

  4. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Akshay Deshmukh & Menachem Elimelech

  5. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Qilin Li

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Contributions

K.Z. and W.W. contributed equally to this work; they designed and performed the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. J.L, Q.L., P.M.A. and M.E. conceived the idea, revised the manuscript and led the project. S.J., H.G., R.X. and A.D. assisted with the sample growth, TEM characterization, MD operation and simulation, respectively.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pulickel M. Ajayan, Jun Lou or Qilin Li.

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Peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Shihong Lin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–6, Figs. 1–16 and refs. 1–53.

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Zuo, K., Wang, W., Deshmukh, A. et al. Multifunctional nanocoated membranes for high-rate electrothermal desalination of hypersaline waters. Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 1025–1032 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-00777-0

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