title: Reversed thermo-switchable molecular sieving membranes composed of two-dimensional metal-organic nanosheets for gas separation.
abstract: It is highly desirable to reduce the membrane thickness in order to maximize the throughput and break the trade-off limitation for membrane-based gas separation. Two-dimensional membranes composed of atomic-thick graphene or graphene oxide nanosheets have gas transport pathways that are at least three orders of magnitude higher than the membrane thickness, leading to reduced gas permeation flux and impaired separation throughput. Here we present nm-thick molecular sieving membranes composed of porous two-dimensional metal-organic nanosheets. These membranes possess pore openings parallel to gas concentration gradient allowing high gas permeation flux and high selectivity, which are proven by both experiment and molecular dynamics simulation. Furthermore, the gas transport pathways of these membranes exhibit a reversed thermo-switchable feature, which is attributed to the molecular flexibility of the building metal-organic nanosheets.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Xuerui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Chenglong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chi
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yuhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Krishna M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Zixi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Jianwen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical &Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore 117585, Singapore.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao