Graphene oxide membranes on ceramic hollow fibers - Microstructural stability and nanofiltration performance

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes have demonstrated great potential in liquid filtration. With the aim of real applications, GO membranes in a hollow fiber shape are of particular interest because of the highefficiency and easy-assembly features at the module level. We report here that GO membranes on ceramic hollow fiber substrates are unstable at the dry state, mainly due to the drying-related shrinkage. And we demonstrate that these GO hollow fiber membranes can be stabilized by keeping them wet after initial controlled formation of the membranes. The GO hollow fiber membranes show higher permeation fluxes of acetone and methanol than most commercial membranes, and reject molecules larger than 300 Da, showing a great potential in the use of value-added organic solvent nanofiltration processes. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.