RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Nanoporous Boron Nitride for High Efficient Water Desalination
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 500876
DO 10.1101/500876
A1 Gu, Zonglin
A1 Liu, Shengtang
A1 Dai, Xing
A1 Chen, Serena H.
A1 Yang, Zaixing
A1 Zhou, Ruhong
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/18/500876.abstract
AB Membrane filtration processes for water desalination have been greatly improved thanks to rapid development of nanoporous 2-dimentional (2D) materials. Nanoporous graphene and molybdenum disulfide have proved to show promising properties for desalination. In this study, we detailly investigated the desalination performance of a different nanoporous 2D material, nanoporous boron nitride (BN), by Molecular Dynamics simulation. Our calculations demonstrated that nanoporous BN allows for rapid water permeability with effective salt rejection. The permeability is not only two orders of magnitude higher than existing commercial techniques but also much higher than nanoporous graphene and molybdenum disulfide membranes. We further showed that the pores with B-h edges or with N-h edges present different desalination efficiency. Compared to N-h pores, B-h pores have better desalination performance in term of higher water flux. To the best of our knowledge, nanoporous BN is the 2D material having the highest water permeability thus far while maintaining high salt rejection. Overall, our results shed light on the potential