Photothermal-Responsive Graphene Oxide Membrane with Smart Gates for Water Purification
Yang Wang1, Zheng Zhang1, Ting Li1
1Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering , Jiangnan University , 1800 Lihu Road , Wuxi , Jiangsu 214122 , China.
Abstract:
In this work, photothermal-responsive graphene oxide (GO)-based membranes intercalated by multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were prepared by polydopamine (PDA) modification and 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone (UPy) assembly process. Benefited from the high photothermal conversion ability of PDA and reversible UPy dimer, the permeation flux of the GO-based membrane can be easily modulated with a high gating ratio under near-infrared light switched off and on. Nanochannels created by the intercalation of MWCNTs into GO layers greatly increase water permeation without sacrificing the rejection of dye molecules in water (96.2% for methyl orange, 98.9% for rhodamine B, and 99.7% for Coomassie brilliant blue). The composite membranes also exhibit trade-off between rejection of heavy metal ions (Cu2+ and Fe3+). Moreover, such GO-based membranes show high pH stabilities, which show great potential in the water purification applications.
