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Dehhaghi Y, Kiakojouri A, Frank I, Nadimi E. Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Investigation on the Permeation of Sodium and Chloride Ions Through Nanopores in Graphene and Hexagonal Boron Nitride Membranes. Chemphyschem 2024:e202400318. [PMID: 38801292 DOI: 10.1002/cphc.202400318] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2024] [Revised: 05/12/2024] [Accepted: 05/26/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024]
Abstract
Nanoporous membranes promise energy-efficient water desalination. Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), like graphene, exhibits outstanding physical and chemical properties, making it a promising candidate for water treatment. We employed Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics simulations to establish an accurate modeling of Na+ and Cl- permeation through hydrogen passivated nanopores in graphene and h-BN membranes. We demonstrate that ion separation works well for the h-BN system by imposing a barrier of 0.13 eV and 0.24 eV for Na+ and Cl- permeation, respectively. In contrast, for permeation of the graphene nanopore, the Cl- ion faces a minimum of energy of 0.68 eV in the nanopore plane and is prone toward blockade of the nanopore, while the Na+ ion experiences a slight minimum of 0.03 eV. Overall, the desalination performance of h-BN nanopores surpasses that of their graphene counterparts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yasaman Dehhaghi
- Center for Computational Micro and Nanoelectronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, 16317-14191, Tehran, Iran
| | - Ali Kiakojouri
- Center for Computational Micro and Nanoelectronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, 16317-14191, Tehran, Iran
| | - Irmgard Frank
- Theoretische Chemie, Universität Hannover, Callinstr. 3 A, 30167, Hannover, Germany
| | - Ebrahim Nadimi
- Center for Computational Micro and Nanoelectronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, K. N. Toosi University of Technology, 16317-14191, Tehran, Iran
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Luo S, Misra RP, Blankschtein D. Water Electric Field Induced Modulation of the Wetting of Hexagonal Boron Nitride: Insights from Multiscale Modeling of Many-Body Polarization. ACS NANO 2024; 18:1629-1646. [PMID: 38169482 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c09811] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
Understanding the behavior of water contacting two-dimensional materials, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), is important in practical applications, including seawater desalination and energy harvesting. Water, being a polar solvent, can strongly polarize the hBN surface via the electric fields that it generates. However, there is a lack of molecular-level understanding about the role of polarization effects at the hBN/water interface, including its effect on the wetting properties of water. In this study, we develop a theoretical framework that introduces an all-atomistic polarizable force field to accurately model the interactions of water molecules with hBN surfaces. The force field is then utilized to self-consistently describe the water-induced polarization of hBN using the classical Drude oscillator model, including predicting the hBN-water binding energies which are found to be in excellent agreement with diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) predictions. By carrying out molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we demonstrate that the polarizable force field yields a water contact angle on multilayered hBN which is in close agreement with the recent experimentally reported values. Conversely, an implicit modeling of the hBN-water polarization energy utilizing a Lennard-Jones (LJ) potential, a commonly utilized approximation in previous MD simulation studies, leads to a considerably lower water contact angle. This difference in the predicted contact angles is attributed to the significant energy-entropy compensation resulting from the incorporation of polarization effects at the hBN-water interface. Our work highlights the importance of self-consistently modeling the hBN-water polarization energy and offers insights into the wetting-related interfacial phenomena of water on polarizable materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shuang Luo
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Rahul Prasanna Misra
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
| | - Daniel Blankschtein
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States
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Liu Y, Xie S, Wu J, Jiang L, Liu L, Li J. Revealing the confinement effects of graphitic carbon nitride nanochannels on the water desalination performance. Sep Purif Technol 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.seppur.2023.123553] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/12/2023]
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Yao J, Ma B, Zhang J, Chen C, Zhang L, Wang X, Zhang W, Liang L, Chen E. Understanding the desalination performance of seawater passing through the lamellar BN membranes: effect of interlayer spacing and concentration. J Mol Liq 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2023.121356] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/12/2023]
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Naclerio AE, Kidambi PR. A Review of Scalable Hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) Synthesis for Present and Future Applications. ADVANCED MATERIALS (DEERFIELD BEACH, FLA.) 2023; 35:e2207374. [PMID: 36329667 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202207374] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2022] [Revised: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a layered inorganic synthetic crystal exhibiting high temperature stability and high thermal conductivity. As a ceramic material it has been widely used for thermal management, heat shielding, lubrication, and as a filler material for structural composites. Recent scientific advances in isolating atomically thin monolayers from layered van der Waals crystals to study their unique properties has propelled research interest in mono/few layered h-BN as a wide bandgap insulating support for nanoscale electronics, tunnel barriers, communications, neutron detectors, optics, sensing, novel separations, quantum emission from defects, among others. Realizing these futuristic applications hinges on scalable cost-effective high-quality h-BN synthesis. Here, the authors review scalable approaches of high-quality mono/multilayer h-BN synthesis, discuss the challenges and opportunities for each method, and contextualize their relevance to emerging applications. Maintaining a stoichiometric balance B:N = 1 as the atoms incorporate into the growing layered crystal and maintaining stacking order between layers during multi-layer synthesis emerge as some of the main challenges for h-BN synthesis and the development of processes to address these aspects can inform and guide the synthesis of other layered materials with more than one constituent element. Finally, the authors contextualize h-BN synthesis efforts along with quality requirements for emerging applications via a technological roadmap.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew E Naclerio
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37212, USA
| | - Piran R Kidambi
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37212, USA
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37212, USA
- Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37212, USA
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Liu J, Liu X, Tao W, Li Z, Xu H. Understanding of water desalination in two-dimensional porous membrane via molecular dynamics. J Mol Liq 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2022.119408] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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7
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Transport behavior of water and ions through positively charged nanopores. J Mol Liq 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2022.119546] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Sharma BB, Govind Rajan A. How Grain Boundaries and Interfacial Electrostatic Interactions Modulate Water Desalination via Nanoporous Hexagonal Boron Nitride. J Phys Chem B 2022; 126:1284-1300. [PMID: 35120291 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c09287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
To fulfill the increasing demand for drinking water, researchers are currently exploring nanoporous two-dimensional materials, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), as potential desalination membranes. A prominent, yet unsolved challenge is to understand how such membranes will perform in the presence of defects or surface charge in the membrane material. In this work, we study the effect of grain boundaries (GBs) and interfacial electrostatic interactions on the desalination performance of bicrystalline nanoporous hBN using classical molecular dynamics simulations supported by quantum-mechanical density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We investigate three different nanoporous bicrystalline hBN configurations, with symmetric tilt GBs having misorientation angles of 13.2, 21.8, and 32.2°. Using lattice dynamics calculations, we find that grain boundaries alter the areas and shapes of nanopores in bicrystalline hBN, as compared to the nanopores in monocrystalline hBN. We observe that, although bicrystalline nanoporous hBN with a misorientation angle of 13.2° shows an improved water flow rate by ∼30%, it demonstrates reduced Na+ ion rejection by ∼6%, as compared to monocrystalline hBN. We also uncover the role of the nanopore shape in water desalination, finding that more elongated pores with smaller sizes (in 21.8- and 32.2°-misoriented bicrystalline hBN) can match water permeation through less elongated pores of slightly larger sizes, with a concomitant ∼3-4% decrease in Na+ rejection. Simulations also predict that the water flow rate is significantly affected by interfacial electrostatic interactions. Indeed, the water flow rate is the highest when altered partial charges on B and N atoms were determined using DFT calculations, as compared to when no partial charges or bulk partial charges (i.e., charged hBN) were considered. Overall, our work on water/ion transport through nanopores in bicrystalline hBN indicates that the presence of GBs and surface charge can lead, respectively, to a decrease in the ion rejection and water permeation performance of hBN membranes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bharat Bhushan Sharma
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560012, India
| | - Ananth Govind Rajan
- Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560012, India
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Vatanpour V, Naziri Mehrabani SA, Keskin B, Arabi N, Zeytuncu B, Koyuncu I. A Comprehensive Review on the Applications of Boron Nitride Nanomaterials in Membrane Fabrication and Modification. Ind Eng Chem Res 2021. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.1c02102] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Vahid Vatanpour
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Kharazmi University, Tehran, 15719-14911, Iran
- Environmental Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
| | - Seyed Ali Naziri Mehrabani
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Nano Science and Nano Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
| | - Basak Keskin
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Environmental Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
| | - Negar Arabi
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Nano Science and Nano Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
| | - Bihter Zeytuncu
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
| | - Ismail Koyuncu
- National Research Center on Membrane Technologies, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
- Environmental Engineering Department, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, 34469, Turkey
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Liu Y, Cheng Z, Song M, Jiang L, Fu G, Liu L, Li J. Molecular dynamics simulation-directed rational design of nanoporous graphitic carbon nitride membranes for water desalination. J Memb Sci 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.memsci.2020.118869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
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