↓ Skip to main content

Tunable sieving of ions using graphene oxide membranes

Overview of attention for article published in Nature Nanotechnology, April 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#5 of 3,764)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
108 news outlets
blogs
16 blogs
twitter
94 X users
patent
5 patents
facebook
12 Facebook pages
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page
googleplus
11 Google+ users
reddit
2 Redditors

Citations

dimensions_citation
1379 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
1136 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Tunable sieving of ions using graphene oxide membranes
Published in
Nature Nanotechnology, April 2017
DOI 10.1038/nnano.2017.21
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jijo Abraham, Kalangi S. Vasu, Christopher D. Williams, Kalon Gopinadhan, Yang Su, Christie T. Cherian, James Dix, Eric Prestat, Sarah J. Haigh, Irina V. Grigorieva, Paola Carbone, Andre K. Geim, Rahul R. Nair

Abstract

Graphene oxide membranes show exceptional molecular permeation properties, with promise for many applications. However, their use in ion sieving and desalination technologies is limited by a permeation cutoff of ∼9 Å (ref. 4), which is larger than the diameters of hydrated ions of common salts. The cutoff is determined by the interlayer spacing (d) of ∼13.5 Å, typical for graphene oxide laminates that swell in water. Achieving smaller d for the laminates immersed in water has proved to be a challenge. Here, we describe how to control d by physical confinement and achieve accurate and tunable ion sieving. Membranes with d from ∼9.8 Å to 6.4 Å are demonstrated, providing a sieve size smaller than the diameters of hydrated ions. In this regime, ion permeation is found to be thermally activated with energy barriers of ∼10-100 kJ mol(-1) depending on d. Importantly, permeation rates decrease exponentially with decreasing sieve size but water transport is weakly affected (by a factor of <2). The latter is attributed to a low barrier for the entry of water molecules and large slip lengths inside graphene capillaries. Building on these findings, we demonstrate a simple scalable method to obtain graphene-based membranes with limited swelling, which exhibit 97% rejection for NaCl.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 94 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 1,136 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 4 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
France 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Unknown 1126 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 265 23%
Student > Master 142 13%
Researcher 136 12%
Student > Bachelor 96 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 58 5%
Other 160 14%
Unknown 279 25%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Chemistry 180 16%
Materials Science 153 13%
Engineering 152 13%
Chemical Engineering 124 11%
Physics and Astronomy 71 6%
Other 118 10%
Unknown 338 30%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1034. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 February 2024.
All research outputs
#15,443
of 25,582,611 outputs
Outputs from Nature Nanotechnology
#5
of 3,764 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#260
of 324,178 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Nanotechnology
#2
of 65 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,582,611 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,764 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 38.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 324,178 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 65 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.