Thakur Amit K, Mahbub Hasib, Nowrin Fouzia Hasan, Malmali Mahdi
Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 807 Canton Avenue, Lubbock, Texas79409, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2022 Oct 19;14(41):46884-46895. doi: 10.1021/acsami.2c09563. Epub 2022 Oct 6.
Laser-induced graphene (LIG) materials have great potential in water treatment applications. Herein, we report the fabrication of a mechanically robust electroconductive LIG membrane with tailored separation properties for ultrafiltration (UF) applications. These LIG membranes are facilely fabricated by directly lasing poly(ether sulfone) (PES) membrane support. Control PES membranes were fabricated through a nonsolvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) technique. A major finding was that when PES UF membranes were treated with glycerol, the membrane porous structure remained almost unchanged upon drying, which also assisted with protecting the membrane's nanoscale features after lasing. Compared to the control PES membrane, the membrane fabricated with 8% laser power on the bottom layer of PES (PES (B)-LIG-HP) demonstrated 4 times higher flux (865 LMH) and 90.9% bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection. Moreover, LIG membranes were found to be highly hydrophilic and exhibited excellent mechanical and chemical stability. Owing to their excellent permeance and separation efficiency, these highly robust electroconductive LIG membranes have a great potential to be used for designing functional membranes.
激光诱导石墨烯（LIG）材料在水处理应用中具有巨大潜力。在此，我们报道了一种具有定制分离性能的机械坚固的导电LIG膜的制备，用于超滤（UF）应用。这些LIG膜通过直接激光照射聚醚砜（PES）膜支撑体轻松制备而成。对照PES膜通过非溶剂诱导相分离（NIPS）技术制备。一个主要发现是，当用甘油处理PES超滤膜时，干燥后膜的多孔结构几乎保持不变，这也有助于在激光照射后保护膜的纳米级特征。与对照PES膜相比，在PES底层以8%激光功率制备的膜（PES（B）-LIG-HP）通量提高了4倍（865 LMH），牛血清白蛋白（BSA）截留率达到90.9%。此外，发现LIG膜具有高度亲水性，并表现出优异的机械和化学稳定性。由于其优异的渗透性和分离效率，这些高度坚固的导电LIG膜在设计功能膜方面具有巨大潜力。
