Abstract
With climate change and population growth, securing water resources has become one of the greatest challenges of the coming decades. To meet growing demand, water must be recovered and purified. In this context, the development of membranes with higher selectivity and permeation rates should reduce the energy footprint of water recovery and desalination, and would have a significant societal and industrial impact. Two-dimensional (2D) materials, with atomic thickness and large lateral dimensions, can be considered the ultimate membranes, but their use as monolayer membranes remains limited. Thanks to the space obtained between layers, nanolaminated membranes made of repackaged nanosheets could theoretically lead to better separation performance. In my lecture, I will present the state of the art in the field of membranes based on 2D materials and introduce the associated fundamental concepts. I will then describe my research into the use of 2D materials as building blocks for membrane preparation. In particular, we will examine the role of nanosheet surface chemistry and stacking defects on membrane properties.
