Hydration of bilayered graphene oxide

The hydration of graphene oxide (GO) membranes is the key to understand their remarkable selectivity in permeation of water molecules and humidity-dependent gas separation. We investigated the hydration of single GO layers as a function of humidity using scanning force microscopy, and we determined the single interlayer distance from the step height of a single GO layer on top of one or two GO layers. This interlayer distance grows gradually by approximately 1 Å upon a relative humidity (RH) increase in the range of 2 to ∼80%, and the immersion into liquid water increases the interlayer distance further by another 3 Å. The gradual expansion of the single interlayer distance is in good agreement with the averaged distance measured by X-ray diffraction on multilayered graphite oxides, which is commonly explained with an interstratification model. However, our experimental design excludes effects connected to interstratification. Instead we determine directly if insertion of water into GO occurs strictly by monolayers or the thickness of GO layers changes gradually. We find that hydration with up to 80% RH is a continuous process of incorporation of water molecules into single GO layers, while liquid water inserts as monolayers. The similarity of hydration for our bilayer and previously reported multilayered materials implies GO few and even bilayers to be suitable for selective water transport.