title: Tunable C2N Membrane for High Efficient Water Desalination.
abstract: Water scarcity represents one of the most serious global problems of our time and challenges the advancements in desalination techniques. Although water-filtering architectures based on graphene have greatly advanced the approach to high performance desalination membranes, the controlled-generation of nanopores with particular diameter is tricky and has stunted its wide applications. Here, through molecular dynamic simulations and first-principles calculations, we propose that the recently reported graphene-like carbon nitride (g-C2N) monolayer can serve as high efficient filters for water desalination. Taking the advantages of the intrisic nanoporous structure and excellent mechanical properties of g-C2N, high water transparency and strong salt filtering capability have been demonstrated in our simulations. More importantly, the "open" and "closed" states of the g-C2N filter can be precisely regulated by tensile strain. It is found that the water permeability of g-C2N is significantly higher than that reported for graphene filters by almost one order of magnitude. In the light of the abundant family of graphene-like carbon nitride monolayered materials, our results thus offer a promising approach to the design of high efficient filteration architectures.
authors.affiliation: School for Radiological and Interdisciplinary Sciences (RAD-X) and Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou, China, 215123.
authors.forename: Yanmei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School for Radiological and Interdisciplinary Sciences (RAD-X) and Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou, China, 215123.
authors.forename: Weifeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, China, 250100.
authors.forename: Hongcai
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, China, 250100.
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, China, 250100.
authors.forename: Mingwen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhao