Abstract

Smart regulation of substance permeability through porous membranes is highly desirable for membrane applications. Inspired by the stomatal closure feature of plant leaves at relatively high temperature, here we report a nano-gating membrane with a negative temperature-response coefficient that is capable of tunable water gating and precise small molecule separation. The membrane is composed of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) covalently bound to graphene oxide via free-radical polymerization. By virtue of the temperature tunable lamellar spaces of the graphene oxide nanosheets, the water permeance of the membrane could be reversibly regulated with a high gating ratio. Moreover, the space tunability endows the membrane with the capability of gradually separating multiple molecules of different sizes. This nano-gating membrane expands the scope of temperature-responsive membranes and has great potential applications in smart gating systems and molecular separation.

Details

Title
Bioinspired graphene membrane with temperature tunable channels for water gating and molecular separation
Author
Liu, Jingchong 1 ; Wang, Nü 1 ; Li-Juan, Yu 2 ; Karton, Amir 2 ; Li, Wen 3 ; Zhang, Weixia 4 ; Guo, Fengyun 5 ; Hou, Lanlan 1 ; Cheng, Qunfeng 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Jiang, Lei 1 ; Weitz, David A 6 ; Zhao, Yong 5 

 Laboratory of Bioinspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Energy Materials and Devices, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, China 
 School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway Crawley, Perth, WA, Australia 
 Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry, Department of Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Nanchen Street 333, Shanghai, China; John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 
 John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 
 Laboratory of Bioinspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Bioinspired Energy Materials and Devices, School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, China; John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 
 John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 
Pages
1-9
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Dec 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1983428683
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.