Thermally reduced nanoporous graphene oxide membrane for desalination

Graphene-based laminar membranes open new avenues for water treatment, in particular reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membranes with high stability in aqueous solutions, are gaining increasing attention for desalination. However, low water permeability of these membranes significantly limits their applications. In this study, the water permeability of thermally reduced GO membrane was increased by a factor of 26 times by creating in-plane nanopores with an average diameter of ~ 3 nm and a high density of 2.89×1015 m-2 via H2O2 oxidation. These in-plane nanopores provide additional transport channels and shorten the transport distance for water molecules. Meanwhile, salt rejection of this membrane is dominated by both the Donnan effect and the size exclusion of the interspaces. Besides, the water permeability and salt rejection of the thermally reduced nanoporous GO membrane can also be simply tuned by adjusting the thermal treatment time and membrane thickness. Additionally, the fabricated membrane exhibited ...