Water Desalination Using Nanoporous Single-Layer Graphene with Tunable Pore Size

Abstract

Graphene has great potential to serve as a separation membrane due to its unique properties such as chemical and mechanical stability, flexibility and most importantly its one-atom thickness. In this study, we demonstrate first experimental evidence of the use of single-layer porous graphene as a desalination membrane. Nanometer-sized pores are introduced into single layer graphene using a convenient oxygen plasma etching process that permits tuning of the pore size. The resulting porous graphene membrane exhibited high rejection of salt ions and rapid water transport, thus functioning as an efficient water desalination membrane. Salt rejection selectivity of nearly 100% and exceptionally high water fluxes exceeding 105 g m-2 s-1 at 40 °C were measured using saturated water vapor as a driving force.