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Ultrahigh-water-flux desalination on graphdiyne membranes

Nature Water volume 1, pages 800–807 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Membrane desalination is an emerging technology that shows promise for producing freshwater from saline waters. However, most membranes are challenged by low freshwater flux, impacting the water productivity, energy efficiency and membrane usage. Here we present the submicrometre-thick and nanopore-structured graphdiyne membranes on porous Cu hollow fibres. We accomplish nearly perfect NaCl rejections (>99.9%) and ultrahigh water permeabilities reaching ~700 l m−2 h−1, which are approximately 1–3 orders of magnitude higher than those of commercial polymeric membranes, in vacuum membrane distillation of a 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Membrane stability is demonstrated by feeding hypersaline waters, real seawater and pollutant-containing waters. The resultant interfacial and microstructural properties of the membranes combine the interfacial ion sieving effect with vapour-transport capability to enable complete salt exclusion and accelerate the water flux. Experimental and theoretical studies have revealed that interfacial transport between graphdiyne interlayers increases the water flux by orders of magnitude relative to transport through intralayer pores.

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Fig. 1: GDY membranes on porous copper hollow fibres.
Fig. 2: Fast ion separation over GDY@PCHF membranes.
Fig. 3: Desalination mechanism of the GDY membranes.

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Data availability

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

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 21878322, 22075309 (G.Z.), U1932123 (G.S.) and 12105166 (X.L.)), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (grant numbers 19ZR1479200 and 22ZR1470100 (G.Z.)), the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number WIUCASQD2021014 (G.S.)) and the Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Institute Cooperative Research Project Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (grant number 2022LHA09 (G.Z.)). We thank J. Yang (SARI) for sample characterizations, Z. Guo (ShanghaiTech) for providing real seawater and A. Goldbach (DICP) for helpful discussions.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Huiling Chen, Xing Liu, Dian Gong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Low-carbon Conversion Science and Engineering, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Huiling Chen, Dian Gong, Chang Zhu, Guojuan Liu, Jingrui Fan, Ping Wu, Zhi Li & Gaofeng Zeng

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Huiling Chen, Dian Gong, Chang Zhu, Guojuan Liu, Jingrui Fan & Gaofeng Zeng

  3. Shanghai Applied Radiation Institute and State Key Lab. Advanced Special Steel, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Xing Liu & Guosheng Shi

  4. Institute of Carbon Neutrality, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China

    Zhi Li & Yuhan Sun

  5. School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China

    Zhi Li

  6. College of Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China

    Yichang Pan

  7. Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, China

    Guosheng Shi

  8. Shanxi Research Institute, HuaiRou Research Laboratory, Taiyuan, China

    Yuhan Sun

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Contributions

G. Z. conceived and designed the project. G. S. and G.Z. conceived and designed the simulations. H. C. performed the experiments of membrane preparation, characterization, and membrane separation. D. G. prepared the schematics. X. L. and G. S. carried out the theoretical calculations. G. Z., H. C., X. L., and G. S. prepared the original draft. G. Z. and G. S. wrote the final version of manuscript. C. Z. and H. C. prepared the porous copper hollow fibres. Y. P. contributed to discussion and draft editing. Y. S. participated in project administration. D. G., G. L., P. W., J. F., and Z. L. contributed to materials characterization and long-term stability tests. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Guosheng Shi, Yuhan Sun or Gaofeng Zeng.

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Nature Water thanks Yingchao Dong, Zhiping Lai and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Chen, H., Liu, X., Gong, D. et al. Ultrahigh-water-flux desalination on graphdiyne membranes. Nat Water 1, 800–807 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00123-3

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