Atomistic understandings of reduced graphene oxide as an ultrathin-film nanoporous membrane for separations
Journal
Nature Communications
Journal Volume
6
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Abstract
The intrinsic defects in reduced graphene oxide (rGO) formed during reduction processes can act as nanopores, making rGO a promising ultrathin-film membrane candidate for separations. To assess the potential of rGO for such applications, molecular dynamics techniques are employed to understand the defect formation in rGO and their separation performance in water desalination and natural gas purification. We establish the relationship between rGO synthesis parameters and defect sizes, resulting in a potential means to control the size of nanopores in rGO. Furthermore, our results show that rGO membranes obtained under properly chosen synthesis conditions can achieve effective separations and provide significantly higher permeate fluxes than currently available membranes. ? 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Subjects
graphene oxide
nanofilm
natural gas
oxygen
water
carbon
desalination
film
membrane
molecular analysis
pore space
purification
reduction
Article
molecular dynamics
nanopore
oxygen concentration
particle size
separation technique
simulation
synthesis
Type
journal article