Journal
Nature Chemistry
Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages 166-170Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.2145
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Funding
- National Science Foundation [DMR-CAREER 0955612]
- Office of Naval Research [ONRN000141310556]
- International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University
- China Scholarship Council
- John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
- National Basic Research Program of China [2014CB932403]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51372167]
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center [NNA06CB93G]
- Northwestern University Atomic and Nanoscale Characterization Experimental Center (NUANCE, Keck-II)
- National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program [DMR-1121262]
- Division Of Materials Research
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [0955612] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Graphene oxide (GO) films are known to be highly stable in water and this property has made their use in membrane applications in solution possible. However, this state of affairs is somewhat counterintuitive because GO sheets become negatively charged on hydration and the membrane should disintegrate owing to electrostatic repulsion. We have now discovered a long-overlooked reason behind this apparent contradiction. Our findings show that neat GO membranes do, indeed, readily disintegrate in water, but the films become stable if they are crosslinked by multivalent cationic metal contaminants. Such metal contaminants can be introduced unintentionally during the synthesis and processing of GO, most notably on filtration with anodized aluminium oxide filter discs that corrode to release significant amounts of aluminium ions. This finding has wide implications in interpreting the processing-structure-property relationships of GO and other lamellar membranes. We also discuss strategies to avoid and mitigate metal contamination and demonstrate that this effect can be exploited to synthesize new membrane materials.
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