Solvent reverse osmosis beyond size exclusion in 2D nanochannel membranes

DOI

<p><span lang="EN-US">Solvent reverse osmosis is a pressure-driven</span><span lang="EN-US">, liquid-phase</span><span lang="EN-US"> process for separating solvent mixtures, offering </span><span lang="EN-US">a potential low-energy</span><span lang="EN-US"> alternative to thermal operations. Graphene oxide (GO) laminates provide tunable nanochannels to </span><span lang="EN-US">probe confined </span><span lang="EN-US">solvent transport, yet solvent–solvent separations remain underexplored due to solvation-induced structural instabilities and the small </span><span lang="EN-US">molecular sizes</span><span lang="EN-US">. Here we construct</span><span lang="EN-US"> solvent-stable,</span><span lang="EN-US"> supported GO nanochannel membranes </span><span lang="EN-US">that preserves integrity under pressurized solvents,</span><span lang="EN-US"> and tune interlayer confinement and surface polarity via controlled chemical reduction. Across 51 solvent systems and 5 distinct nanochannels, we demonstrate that separation is governed by coupled nanoconfinement and solvent affinity, where selective interfacial association can surpass simple size-exclusion expectations. Maximum permselectivity arises from balancing channel size with retained polarity, indicating that channel shrinking alone does not optimize performance. These findings identify channel surface chemistry as a key design factor for polarity-rich solvent systems and provide a framework for rationally tailoring nanochannels for complex solvent separations.</span></p>

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:q6-76
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:nt-34
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:c01nz-npe23
Provenance
Creator Guan, Kecheng; Guo, Yuanyuan; Dai, Liheng; Zhang, Aiwen; Li, Zhan; Deng, Erda; Nakagawa, Keizo; Guo, Yanan; Liu, Gongping; Yoshioka, Tomohisa; Jin, Wanqin; Matsuyama, Hideto
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Guo, Yanan; Jin, Wanqin; Matsuyama, Hideto
Publication Year 2026
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/zip; text/plain
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering