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Polymeric membranes with highly homogenized nanopores for ultrafast water purification

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Abstract

Membrane nanofiltration is widely used in various chemical separation and water purification processes. However, obtaining high water permeance and high solute removal selectivity for achieving energetically efficient precise separation in nanofiltration membranes remains challenging due to their inherent pore heterogeneity. Here we introduce a cinnamate-mediated polymerization method to fabricate nanofiltration membranes with highly homogenized and well-tailored nanopores to address this challenge. Our experimental data and molecular dynamics simulation results show that cinnamate-mediated polymerization can manipulate monomer diffusion and intermolecular void size to create a homogenized and tailored selective layer in a highly homogenized membrane. The obtained membrane exhibited a high water permeance of 104.3 l m−2 h−1 bar−1, which is substantially higher than that of the pristine membrane synthesized without cinnamate mediation, superior molecular sieving ability, excellent salt/dye separation factor and good operational stability, outperforming state-of-the-art membranes. Overall, this work enables the design and fabrication of nanofiltration membranes that combine other mutually exclusive properties for energetically efficient water purification applications towards a sustainable water–energy nexus.

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Fig. 1: Schematic illustration of CMP.
Fig. 2: Microstructural properties of CNMs and HHMs.
Fig. 3: Molecular dynamics simulation results.
Fig. 4: Nanofiltration performance of CNMs and HHMs.

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Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are included within the paper and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program (2023YFE0127000, L.S.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (22178076, L.S.) and Fundamental Research Funds from the Central Universities of Ministry of Education of China (2023FRFK03047, L.S.). S.L. acknowledges the financial support provided by the Australian Research Council (DP180103861 and IH170100009). The TEM testing was conducted by D. M. Li (School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Junhui Huang, Yanqiu Zhang, **g Guo, Fan Yang, Yong** Bai & Lu Shao

  2. School of Environments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    Yanqiu Zhang & Jun Ma

  3. School of Engineering, Great Bay University, Dongguan, China

    Shaomin Liu

  4. WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Shaomin Liu

  5. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Huanting Wang

Authors
  1. Junhui Huang
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Contributions

L.S., J.H., Y.Z., S.L. and H.W. designed the experiments. J.H. carried out the material synthesis, material characterization and performance measurements. J.H., Y.Z., J.G., L.S., S.L. and H.W. performed the data analysis. J.H. wrote the manuscript, and J.H., Y.Z., J.G., F.Y., J.M., Y.B., L.S., S.L. and H.W. discussed the results and revised the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yanqiu Zhang, Lu Shao, Shaomin Liu or Huanting Wang.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Guandao Gao and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–35, Tables 1–15 and Methods.

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Source data

Source Data Fig. 2

Microstructural properties of membranes, source data.

Source Data Fig. 3

Molecular dynamics simulations results, source data.

Source Data Fig. 4

Nanofiltration performance of membranes, source data.

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Huang, J., Zhang, Y., Guo, J. et al. Polymeric membranes with highly homogenized nanopores for ultrafast water purification. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01371-1

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