title: Water desalination using nanoporous single-layer graphene.
abstract: By creating nanoscale pores in a layer of graphene, it could be used as an effective separation membrane due to its chemical and mechanical stability, its flexibility and, most importantly, its one-atom thickness. Theoretical studies have indicated that the performance of such membranes should be superior to state-of-the-art polymer-based filtration membranes, and experimental studies have recently begun to explore their potential. Here, we show that single-layer porous graphene can be used as a desalination membrane. Nanometre-sized pores are created in a graphene monolayer using an oxygen plasma etching process, which allows the size of the pores to be tuned. The resulting membranes exhibit a salt rejection rate of nearly 100% and rapid water transport. In particular, water fluxes of up to 10(6) g m(-2) s(-1) at 40 °C were measured using pressure difference as a driving force, while water fluxes measured using osmotic pressure as a driving force did not exceed 70 g m(-2) s(-1) atm(-1).
authors: Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
authors: Sumedh P
authors: SP
authors: Surwade
authors: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA.
authors: Sergei N
authors: SN
authors: Smirnov
authors: Energy and Transportation Science, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
authors: Ivan V
authors: IV
authors: Vlassiouk
authors: Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
authors: Raymond R
authors: RR
authors: Unocic
authors: Materials Science &Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
authors: Gabriel M
authors: GM
authors: Veith
authors: 1] Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA [2] Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA.
authors: Sheng
authors: S
authors: Dai
authors: Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.
authors: Shannon M
authors: SM
authors: Mahurin