Highly selective sodium alginate mixed-matrix membrane incorporating multi-layered MXene for ethanol dehydration

The single/double-layered MXene nanosheets with two-dimensional intergaps and good hydrophilicity have been known as-romising-orous fillers for-reparing high-performance mixed matrix membranes for-ervaporation dehydration. However, the single/double-layered MXene nanosheets must be exfoliated from multi layered MXene (mMXene) through long-time ultrasonication and then be collected through high-speed centrifugation, which limits the facile and large-scale application of single/double-layered MXene nanosheets in membrane fabrication. In this study, mMXene-articles with intergaps were directly obtained under mild conditions and then used to fabricate the sodium alginate (SA) mixed matrix membranes. The effects of mMXene content on membrane structure-roperties and-ervaporation dehydration-erformance were studied. Compared with the-ure SA membrane, the SA/mMXene mixed matrix membrane hydrophilicity increases but the degree of swelling decreases with increasing the mMXene content, and the mixed matrix membrane containing 0.12 wt% mMXene in SA shows the 10 times higher separation factor of 9946 and the 24.5% lower-ermeate flux of 505 g m(-2) h(-1) for dehydration of ethanol/water (90 wt%) solution. The hydrophilic mMXene fillers attribute to the enhancement in the-referential sorption of water and the constraint in the selective diffusion of ethanol, giving the significant improvement in membrane selectivity.