Macroscopic Heterostructure Membrane of Graphene Oxide/Porous Graphene/Graphene Oxide for Selective Separation of...

Deuterium water (D₂ O) is a strategic material that is widely used in and scientific research and has applications in fields such as nuclear energy generation. However, its content in natural water is extremely low. Therefore, the development of a room-temperature technology for achieving simple, efficient, and low-cost separation of D₂ O from natural water is challenging. In this study, porous graphene (PG) nanosheets with "crater-like" pores are sandwiched between two layers of graphene oxide (GO) membranes to prepare a GO/PG/GO membrane with a macroscopic heterostructure, which can be used to separate D₂ O and H₂ O by pressure-driven filtration. At 25 °C, the rejection rate of D₂ O is ≈97%, the selectivity of H₂ O/D₂ O is ≈35.2, and the excellent performance can be attributed to the difference of transmembrane resistance and flow state of H₂ O and D₂ O in the confinement state. In addition, the D₂ O concentration in natural water is successfully enriched from 0.013% to 0.059% using only one stage, and the membrane exhibits excellent structural and cycling stability. Therefore, this method does not require ultralow temperatures, high energy supplies, complex separation equipment, or the introduction of toxic chemicals. Thus, it can be directly applied to the large-scale industrial production and removal of D₂ O.