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Updated: Oct 14, 2025

Merging Ion Concentration Polarization between Juxtaposed Ion Exchange Membranes to Block the Propagation of the Polarization Zone
Published on: February 23, 2017
Ionic Crosslinking-Induced Nanochannels: Nanophase Separation for Ion Transport Promotion
Weipeng Chen1,2, Tiandu Dong1, Yun Xiang1
1CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Science, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Charge-governed ion transport is crucial to numerous industries, and the advanced membrane is the essential component. In nature, the efficient and selective ion transport is mainly governed by the charged ion channels located in cell membrane, indicating the architecture with functional differentiation. Inspired by this architecture, a membrane by ionic crosslinking sulfonated poly(arylene ether ketone) and imidazolium-functionalized poly(arylene ether sulfone) is designed and fabricated to make full use of the charges. This ionic crosslinking is designed to realize nanophase separation to aggregate the ion pathways in the membrane, which results in excellent ion selectivity and high ion conductivity. With the excellent ion transport behavior, ionic crosslinking membrane shows great potential in osmotic energy conversion, which maximum power density can be up to 16.72 W m-2 . This design of ionic crosslinking-induced nanophase separation offers a roadmap for ion transport promotion.
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