Title: Sustainable chitin-derived 2D nanosheets for hierarchical ion transport
Authors: Zhongrun Xiang, Yu Chen, Zhijiang Xie, Kaiyu Yuan, Yue Shu, Pan Chen, Huiqing Wang*, Dongdong Ye*
利用具有纳米流体结构的盐度梯度水发电是实现零排放能源目标和应对不断升级的能源危机的一种很有前途的方法。然而，巧妙地设计和开发满足可持续性、低成本、长期稳定性和高输出功率密度要求的生物质膜是一个至关重要的挑战。本工作报道了通过化学改性、酸蒸气处理和超声辅助剥离，制备具有丰富微/纳米孔结构的二维分级结构几丁质纳米片（2D H-CNS）。结果表明，表面电荷化修饰不仅促进了致密几丁质结构向超薄2D H-CNS（1.34nm）的疏松和可控剥离，而且增加了纳米片的孔隙率，提高了离子传输通量和选择性。此外，实验和模拟证实，纳米片组装膜（2D-HM）中的分级离子传输显著增强了离子传输性能，离子电导比致密纳米片组装的膜（2D-DM）提高了18.5倍。此外，嵌入能量采集系统的2D-HM实现了2.59 W m−2的输出功率密度，是2D-DM的2.51倍。这项研究促进了具有高效渗透能量采集的生物质材料开发。
Generating electricity from salinity-gradient waters with nanofluidic structures is a promising approach for achieving zero-emission energy goals and addressing escalating energy crises. However, the ingenious design and development of biomass membranes that satisfy the requirements of sustainability, low cost, long-term stability, and high output power density is a crucial challenge. This work reports two-dimensional hierarchical-structured chitin nanosheets (2D H-CNS) with abundant micro-/nano-pore structures through chemical modification, acid vapor treatment, and ultrasound-assisted exfoliation. The results showed that surface charge modification not only promotes the loosening and controllable exfoliation of the dense chitin structure into ultra-thin 2D H-CNS (1.34 nm) but also increases the porosity and enhances the ion transport flux and selectivity of the nanosheets. Furthermore, experimental and simulation confirm that hierarchical ion transport in nanosheet-assembled membranes (2D-HM) substantially enhances ion transport performance, with an 18.5 times improvement in ion conductance over dense nanosheet-assembled membranes (2D-DM). Furthermore, 2D-HM embedded in an energy harvesting system achieved an output power density of 2.59 W m−2, 2.51 times that of 2D-DM. This study promotes the development of all-biomass materials with high-performance osmotic energy harvesting.
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