Globally imminent shortage of fresh drinking water has been demanding viable strategies for novel desalination schemes adopting more cost- and energy-efficient membrane materials beyond traditional Osmosis technologies. Two-dimensional (2D) materials of near atomic thickness and layered crystallinities have been projected to exhibit distinguishable advantages owing to their intrinsic structural uniqueness, i.e., high mechanical strength and flexibility, large surface area, and presence of nano-porosity. While a few theoretical studies have suggested proof-of-concept demonstrations, experimental realization of 2D materials-based membranes for water desalination and their efficiency assessment have been rarely approached. The limitation has been attributed to the technical difficulty associated with the production of large-scale (&gt; cm2) continuous 2D layers of near atomic thickness and their seamless nitration onto porous substrates. In this talk, we report the experimental demonstration of a few-layer 2D molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)-based high-efficiency water desalination. Centimeter-scale 2D MoS2 layers were grown on SiO2/Si substrates by a seed-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The as-grown 2D layers were facilely separated from the substrates inside water and integrated onto porous PES substrates with preserved structural integrity owing to the surface energy imbalance of 2D MoS2 vs SiO2 upon water expose. This new type of 2D membranes of only a few nanometer thickness exhibits excellent combination of high water permeability (&gt; 322 L m-2 h-1bar-1) and high (&gt; 99%) rejection rates for various seawater salts including Na+, Mg2+, K+, and Ca2+ of various concentrations. Fundamental mechanism for the observed high efficiency will be also discussed.

High efficiency water desalination via 2D MoS2 layer membranes of near atomic thickness

2019 Spring National Meeting

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