Designing membranes with specific binding sites for selective ion separations
Name
Violet_NatWater_2024.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
10.41 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
262e8f82dc584694df6267c7eff70106
Author(s)
Violet, Camille
Ball, Akash
Heiranian, Mohammad
Villalobos, Luis Francisco
Zhang, Junwei
Uralcan, Betul
Kulik, Heather
Haji-Akbari, Amir
Elimelech, Menachem
Date Issued
August 8, 2024
Journal
Nature Water
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Violet, C., Ball, A., Heiranian, M. et al. Designing membranes with specific binding sites for selective ion separations. Nat Water 2, 706–718 (2024).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
A new class of membranes that can separate ions of similar size and charge is highly desired for resource recovery, water reuse and energy storage technologies. These separations require membrane nanochannels with simultaneous ångström-scale confinement and ion-selective binding sites. Conventional membrane material design uses continuous, volume-averaged properties that cannot account for discrete chemical interactions between ions and binding sites. In this Perspective, we present a design framework for ultraselective membranes by describing how to select and incorporate ion-specific binding sites into membrane nanochannels. We begin by discussing how the chemical features of ions, functional groups and solvents impact ion-binding energy. We then describe the role of binding energy in selective ion transport through nanochannels and discuss the critical importance of intersite spacing. Subsequently, we draw inspiration from machine learning methods used for drug discovery and suggest a similar approach to identify functional groups with optimal ion-binding affinity. We conclude by outlining synthetic methods to incorporate ion-specific binding sites into prevalent nanostructured materials such as covalent organic frameworks, metal–organic frameworks, two-dimensional materials and polymers.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
10.1038/s44221-024-00279-6
