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Continuous water-water hydrogen bonding network across the rim of carbon nanotubes facilitating water transport for desalination

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Abstract

The development of membranes featuring carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have provided possibilities of next-generation solar desalination technologies. For solar desalination, the microstructures and interactions between the filter membrane and seawater play a crucial role in desalination performance. Understanding the mechanisms of water evaporation and ion rejection in confined pores or channels is necessary to optimize the desalting process. Here, using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, we found that continuous water-water hydrogen bonding network across the rims of CNTs is the key factor in facilitating water transport through CNTs. With the continuous hydrogen bonding network, the water flux is two times of that without the continuous hydrogen bonding network. In CNT arrays, each CNT transports water molecules and rejects salt ions independently. Based on these observations, using CNT arrays consisted with densely packed thin CNTs is the most advisable strategy for evaporation desalination, possessing high transport flux as well as maintaining high salt rejection.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21975209, 21673197, 51706191, and 21621091), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0209500), the 111 Project (Grant No. B16029), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 20720190037), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China (Grant No. 2018J06003), and CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Science, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Yaqi Hou, Xinyu Chen & Xu Hou

  2. College of Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Miao Wang & Xu Hou

  3. Research Institute for Biomimetics and Soft Matter, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory for Soft Functional Materials Research, Jiujiang Research Institute, College of Physical Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Xu Hou

  4. Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China

    Xu Hou

  5. Tan Kah Kee Innovation Laboratory, Xiamen, 361102, China

    Xu Hou

  6. CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-inspired Materials and Interfacial Sciences, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Xu Hou

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  1. Yaqi Hou
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  2. Miao Wang
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Correspondence to Xu Hou.

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Continuous water-water hydrogen bonding network across the rim of carbon nanotubes facilitating water transport for desalination

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Hou, Y., Wang, M., Chen, X. et al. Continuous water-water hydrogen bonding network across the rim of carbon nanotubes facilitating water transport for desalination. Nano Res. 14, 2171–2178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3173-2

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