|
|
The International Desalination & Water Reuse Quarterly industry website
|
|
| Subscribe | |
| About us Feedback Register Contact Advertise Links Cookies | |
Site Sponsor» What is RSS? » List of feeds » Desalination news on your website? |
Graphene can double desalination flux say MIT pairIn their paper Water Desalination across Nanoporous Graphene published on 5 June 2012 in Nano Letters, the American Chemical Society journal, PhD candidate David Cohen-Tanugi and Professor Jeffery C Grossman claim that their results indicate that the water permeability of nanoporous graphene is several orders of magnitude higher than conventional reverse-osmosis membranes and that the material may have a valuable role to play in water purification. The MIT pair state that nanometer-scale pores in single-layer freestanding graphene can effectively filter sodium chloride from water. Using classical molecular dynamics, they label desalination performance a function of pore size, chemical functionalization and applied pressure. "Our results indicate that the membrane's ability to prevent the salt passage depends critically on pore diameter with adequately sized pores allowing for water flow while blocking ions," say the researchers. "Further, an investigation into the role of chemical functional groups bonded to the edges of graphene pores suggests that commonly occurring hydroxyl groups can roughly double the water flux thanks to their hydrophilic character." The increase in water flux comes at the expense of less consistent salt-rejection performance, which the MIT pair attribute to the ability of hydroxyl functional groups to substitute for water molecules in the hydration shell of the ions. Posted on 26 June 2012
Get D&WR's news every week in our free newsletter. Register now - that's free too!
Source: Desalination & Water Reuse
This story is tagged as:
Desalination | Graphene | Membrane | Nanotechnology | Research | Reverse Osmosis | USA Click on a keyword to see more stories on that topic Share this
© Faversham House Group Ltd 2012.
Desalination & Water Reuse news articles may be copied or forwarded for individual use only. No other reproduction or distribution is permitted without prior written consent.
|
Register Now!You are not
logged in » Log in here  Why not register for your free newsletter with all the week's news? Latest News» IDA Conference Report» Mega-ton project symposium set for Tokyo in November » Aquatech increases Pennsylvania oil & gas resources » ERI providing energy-recovery in Ghana and Oman » Huntingdon Beach councillors oppose desalination plan Related Stories» Nanotech underscores Chicago/Negev research MoU » Grant support for UK graphene membrane research » Researchers review low and renewable energy desalination » Finnish group claims lower cost of nano membranes » AMTA visiting Des Moines for tech transfer workshop » HTI joins Stanford University board for ReNUWIt program » SCMA and AMTA arrange joint workshop in Texas » West Basin looks to hire out its desalination test facility » WateReuse Association develops ERD comparison tool |
Send to a friend
Link to this page
Comment| Subscribe | |
| About us Feedback Register Contact Advertise Links Cookies | |
Cookies