Related papers: Ionic selectivity and filtration from fragmented d…
Porous, atomically thin graphene membranes have interesting properties for filtration and sieving applications because they can accommodate small pore sizes, while maintaining high permeability. These membranes are therefore receiving much…
A new concept of an electromechanical nanodynamometer based on the relative displacement of layers of bilayer graphene is proposed. In this nanodynamometer, force acting on one of the graphene layers causes the relative displacement of this…
Nanostructuring materials at small scales enables control over their physical properties, revealing behaviors not observed at larger dimensions. This strategy is particularly effective in two-dimensional (2D) materials, where surface…
Despite being only one-atom thick, defect-free graphene is considered to be completely impermeable to all gases and liquids. This conclusion is based on theory and supported by experiments that could not detect gas permeation through…
As an important property of porous membranes, the surface charge property determines many ionic behaviors of nanopores, such as ionic conductance and selectivity. Based on the dependence of electric double layers on bulk concentrations,…
Graphene-based electric power generation that converts mechanical energy of flow of ionic droplets over the device surface into electricity has emerged as promising candidate for a blue-energy network. Yet the lack of a microscopic…
Ion dehydration has been hypothesized to strongly influence separation performance in membrane systems and ion transport in nanoscale channels. However, the molecular details of ion dehydration in membranes are not well understood, in…
An ideal proton exchange membrane should only permeate protons and be leak tight for fuels. Graphene is impermeable to water and poorly conducting to protons. Here, we chemically functionalized monolayer graphene to install sulfophenylated…
Nanopores -- nanosized holes that can transport ions and molecules -- are very promising devices for genomic screening, in particular DNA sequencing. Both solid-state and biological pores suffer from the drawback, however, that the channel…
Nanoscale films play a central role in biology and osmotic separations. Their water/salt selectivity is often regarded as intrinsic property, favoring thinner membranes for faster permeation. Here we highlight and quantify a fundamental…
We probe the local inhomogeneities of the electronic properties of graphene at the nanoscale using scanning probe microscopy techniques. First, we focus on the study of the electronic inhomogeneities caused by the graphene-substrate…
Ionic transport in nanopores or nanochannels is key to many cellular processes and is now being explored as a method for DNA/polymer sequencing and detection. Although apparently simple in its scope, the study of ionic dynamics in confined…
Equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the effect of phase transitions on the transport properties of highly-confined water between parallel graphene sheets. An abrupt reduction by several orders of magnitude in…
This work describes the behaviour of water molecules in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquid under nanoconfinement between graphene sheets. By means of molecular dynamics simulations, an adsorption of water molecules…
Thousands of tons of isotopic mixtures are processed annually for heavy-water production and tritium decontamination. The existing technologies remain extremely energy intensive and require large capital investments. New approaches are…
Ubiquitous graphene is a stricly 2D material representing an ideal adsorbing platform due to its large specific surface area as well as its mechanical strength and resistance to both thermal and chemical stresses. However, graphene as a…
Heat transfer between graphene and water is pivotal for various applications, including solarthermal vapor generation and the advanced manufacturing of graphene-based hierarchical structures in solution. In this study, we employ a…
We use molecular simulations of an ionic liquid in contact with a range of nanoporous carbons to investigate correlations between ion size, pore size, pore topology and properties of the adsorbed ions. We show that diffusion coefficients…
Whether or not specific ion effects determine the charge storage properties of aqueous graphene and graphite-based supercapacitors remains a highly debated topic. In this work we present a multiscale quantum mechanics classical molecular…
The separation of liquid mixture components is relevant to many applications -- ranging from water purification to biofuel production -- and is a growing concern related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as ``Clean water…