Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Desalination
Volume
591
Publisher
Elsevier
School
Mineral Recovery Research Centre / School of Engineering
Abstract
The conversion of Gibbs free energy at the interface of solutions with salinity gradients into electrical energy is essentially a means of mitigating environmental pollution and bolstering the availability of new energy sources to enhance the renewable energy portfolio. However, a three-dimensional (3D) sub-nanofluidic membrane with high ion conductivity and selectivity for a reverse electrodialysis (RED) based osmotic energy conversion in both aqueous and organic solutions remains largely unexplored. Herein, we engineered a bilayer metal organic frameworks (MOFs) membrane with polystyrene sulfonated angstrom-size channels in UiO-66-NH2 base layer and isoreticular MIL-88B membrane as the top layer to enhance permselectivity and high-performance salinity gradient energy generation. The angstrom-size windows in the heterogeneous membrane with a negatively charged channel surface endow the UiO-66-NH2(PSS)/MIL-88B membrane with a preferred direction of ion conduction. Collectively, these features of the bilayer angstrofluidic channel membrane promote diffusion-driven osmotic energy conversion of 32.46 Wm−2 and permeability of 526.60 Am−2 at the interface of 500-fold aqueous work condition and 3.89 Wm−2 from 100-fold salinity gradient in LiCl-methanol. This work sheds light on the design and development of novel high-performance sub-nanochannel membranes for osmotic energy generation with high efficiency in both aqueous and waste organic solvents.
DOI
10.1016/j.desal.2024.117968
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Tonnah, R. K., Chai, M., Khedri, M., Razbin, M., Maleki, R., Razmjou, A., & Asadnia, M. (2024). Bilayer asymmetric-based metal-organic frameworks membrane for blue energy conversion. Desalination, 591, 117968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2024.117968