Zhao Yan, Yan Xue, Xia Lei, Qiu Yangbo, Zheng Shuang, Lu Gang, Wang Yaoming, Zhang Yang, Shen Jiangnan, Zhang Xi, Yang Xing, Liu Jefferson Zhe, Dewil Raf, Gao Congjie, Van der Bruggen Bart
Department of Chemical Engineering, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China.
Sci Adv. 2025 Jul 18;11(29):eadv6646. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adv6646. Epub 2025 Jul 16.
Membranes with precise ion transport behaviors are regarded as an alternative for lithium (Li) extraction from water streams. Current membranes demonstrate limited viability due to the lack of efficient Li-selective architectures. We propose an electric field-assisted ion control hypothesis in reinforcing ultraefficient Li-selective membranes, in which an ionized zeolitic imidazolate framework layer (Q-PEI@ZIF) is constructed via polyethylenimine (PEI) in situ confinement conversion and subsequent quaternization of 2,3-epoxypropyl trimethyl ammonium chloride. In electrodialysis at 5 milliampere per square centimeter, the resulting membrane Q(5%)-PEI(1.0)@ZIF#CEM shows that the ion permeation rates follow the order of K ~ Li > Na > Ca ~ Mg, corresponding to 0.31, 0.30, 0.25, 0, and 0 mole per square meter per hour in 120 minutes, respectively. With a 25-millimolar Li/Mg mixed solution, it exhibits an unprecedented Li/Mg permselectivity of 20,000 and 99.99% purity of Li product in 120 minutes. This study expands the hypothesis of electric field-assisted ion control in enabling an ultraefficient Li-selective construction.
具有精确离子传输行为的膜被视为从水流中提取锂（Li）的一种替代方法。由于缺乏高效的锂选择性结构，目前的膜表现出有限的可行性。我们提出了一种电场辅助离子控制假说，用于增强超高效锂选择性膜，其中通过聚乙烯亚胺（PEI）原位限域转化并随后用2,3-环氧丙基三甲基氯化铵进行季铵化，构建了一个离子化的沸石咪唑酯骨架层（Q-PEI@ZIF）。在每平方厘米5毫安的电渗析中，所得的膜Q(5%)-PEI(1.0)@ZIF#CEM表明，离子渗透速率遵循K ~ Li > Na > Ca ~ Mg的顺序，在120分钟内分别对应于每平方米每小时0.31、0.30、0.25、0和0摩尔。对于25毫摩尔的Li/Mg混合溶液，它在120分钟内表现出前所未有的Li/Mg选择性透过率为20,000，锂产物纯度为99.99%。这项研究扩展了电场辅助离子控制假说，以实现超高效的锂选择性结构。
