Ultrafast Water Transport of Reverse Osmosis Membrane Based on Quasi-Vertically Oriented 2D Interlayer
Shengchao Zhao, Jianquan Peng, Chenchen Meng, Shengchao Wei, Zixi Kang, Kuo Chen, Siheng Zhao, Bingbing Yuan, Peng Li, Yingfei Hou, Daohong Xia, Qingshan Niu
Abstract
Interlayered thin-film composite (i-TFC) membranes based on 2D materials have been widely studied due to their high efficiency in mass transfer. However, the randomly stacked 2D nanosheets usually increase the fluid path length to some extent. Herein, in situ -grown quasi-vertically oriented 2D ZIF-L was introduced as an interlayer for preparing high-performance reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Through the optimization of the crystal growth based on the inert polyethylene substrate, the novel i-TFC RO membrane via interfacial polymerization shows an outstanding water permeance (5.50 L m –2 h –1 bar –1 ) and good NaCl rejection (96.3%). The membrane also shows promising potential in domestic water purification and organic solvent separation applications. Compared with the randomly stacked ZIF-L interlayer, the advantages of the vertically oriented one were ascribed to the excellent storage capacity of the amine monomers and the intensified gutter effect. This work will encourage more exploration on the interlayer architectures for high-performance i-TFC membranes.