Bola-amphiphile-imidazole embedded GO membrane with enhanced solvent dehydration properties

Yangyang Mao (1) , Mengchen Zhang (1) , Long Cheng (1) , Jianwei Yuan (1) , Gongping Liu (1) , Libo Huang (2) , Mihail Barboiu (2) , Wanqin Jin (1)

1 Nanjing Tech University
2 IEM - Institut Européen des membranes

Inspired by fast and selective water transport in natural Aquaporin (AQP), imidazole-quartet water channels (IQWC) constructed by imidazole-ureido (IU) molecular scaffolds, are excellent candidates to design membranes with fast and selective water transport properties. In this work, a water binding IU bola-amphiphile-imidazole compound was embedded with the hydrophilic and laminated graphene oxide (GO) to prepare IU-GO membrane. H NMR, TG, XRD, SEM, AFM and FTIR were conducted to characterize physicochemical properties of IU and IU-GO membrane. It was demonstrated that IU could well interact with GO to generate a robust membrane structure. The resulting IU-GO membranes were applied for pervaporation dehydration of n-butanol-water. The total flux and the separation factor of the optimized IU-GO membrane were 3506 g⋅m-2 ⋅h-1 and 4454 respectively when the membrane was measured at 343 K with butanol content of 80 wt%. Furthermore, the membrane exhibited good stability and separation performance during 120 h continuous operation test, showing great potential in application of solvent dehydration.

Mots clés: artificial water channel; imidazole; graphene oxide membrane; solvent dehydration; pervaporation

Domaines: Chimie

Yangyang Mao, Mengchen Zhang, Long Cheng, Jianwei Yuan, Gongping Liu, et al.. Bola-amphiphile-imidazole embedded GO membrane with enhanced solvent dehydration properties. Journal of Membrane Science, 2020, 595, pp.117545. ⟨10.1016/j.memsci.2019.117545⟩. ⟨hal-03029004⟩