Electrostatic-induced ion-confined partitioning in graphene nanolaminate membrane for breaking anion–cation co-transport to enhance desalination

Constructing nanolaminate membranes made of two-dimensional graphene oxide nanosheets has gained enormous interest in recent decades. However, a key challenge facing current graphene-based membranes is their poor rejection for monovalent salts due to the swelling-induced weak nanoconfinement and the transmembrane co-transport of anions and cations. Herein, we propose a strategy of electrostatic-induced ion-confined partitioning in a reduced graphene oxide membrane for breaking the correlation of anions and cations to suppress anion-cation co-transport, substantially improving the desalination performance. The membrane demonstrates a rejection of 95.5% for NaCl with a water permeance of 48.6 L m h bar in pressure-driven process, and it also exhibits a salt rejection of 99.7% and a water flux of 47.0 L m h under osmosis-driven condition, outperforming the performance of reported graphene-based membranes. The simulation and calculation results unveil that the strong electrostatic attraction of membrane forces the hydrated Na to undergo dehydration and be exclusively confined in the nanochannels, strengthening the intra-nanochannel anion/cation partitioning, which refrains from the dynamical anion-cation correlations and thereby prevents anions and cations from co-transporting through the membrane. This study provides guidance for designing advanced desalination membranes and inspires the future development of membrane-based separation technologies.