Zonglin Gu, Shengtang Liu, Xing Dai, Serena H. Chen, Zaixing Yang, Ruhong Zhou
Abstract
Membrane filtration processes for water desalination have been greatly improved thanks to rapid development of nanoporous 2-dimentional (2D) materials. Nanoporous graphene and molybdenum disulfide have proved to show promising properties for desalination. In this study, we detailly investigated the desalination performance of a different nanoporous 2D material, nanoporous boron nitride (BN), by Molecular Dynamics simulation. Our calculations demonstrated that nanoporous BN allows for rapid water permeability with effective salt rejection. The permeability is not only two orders of magnitude higher than existing commercial techniques but also much higher than nanoporous graphene and molybdenum disulfide membranes. We further showed that the pores with B-h edges or with N-h edges present different desalination efficiency. Compared to N-h pores, B-h pores have better desalination performance in term of higher water flux. To the best of our knowledge, nanoporous BN is the 2D material having the highest water permeability thus far while maintaining high salt rejection. Overall, our results shed light on the potential.