Surface-Controlled Water Flow in Nanotube Membranes

Serena Casanova, Matthew Borg, John Chew, Davide Mattia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

The independent effect of nanotube surface chemistry and structure on the flow of water under nanoscale confinement is demonstrated in this paper for the first time via the synthesis of novel carbon nitride nanotube (CNNT) membranes. Using a combination of experiments and high-fidelity molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, it is here shown that the hydrophilisation of the sp2 carbon structure, induced by the presence of the C-N bonds, decreases the pure water permeance in CNNTs when compared with pristine and turbostratic carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The MD simulations are based on a model true to the chemical structure of the synthesized nanotubes, and built from material spectroscopy measurements and calibrated potentials using droplet experiments. The effect on permeance is explained in terms of solid-liquid interactions at the nanotube wall with increased water viscosity and decreased surface diffusion near the CNNT wall, when compared to CNTs. A model directly linking the solid-liquid interactions to the water permeance is presented, showing good agreement with both experiments and MD simulations. This work opens the way to tailoring surface chemistry and structure inside nanotube membranes for a wide range of transport and separation processes.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1689-1698
JournalACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Volume11
Issue number1
Early online date13 Dec 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Jan 2019

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • anodic alumina membrane
  • carbon nitride nanotubes
  • chemical vapor deposition
  • Molecular Dynamics
  • permeance
  • Ultrafiltration

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