All-Poly(ionic liquid) Membrane-derived Porous Carbon Membranes: Scalable Synthesis and Application for Photothermal Conversion in Seawater Desalination

TL;DR

This paper presents a scalable method to produce charged porous polymer membranes with controllable pore structures, which can be converted into heteroatom-doped porous carbon membranes for efficient solar-driven seawater desalination.

Contribution

It introduces a controllable, scalable synthesis strategy for porous polymer and carbon membranes, enabling enhanced photothermal desalination performance.

Findings

Controlled pore sizes via anion selection in PILs.

Successful fabrication of heteroatom-doped porous carbon membranes.

Excellent solar seawater desalination performance.

Abstract

Herein we firstly introduce a straightforward, scalable and technologically relevant strategy to manufacture charged porous polymer membranes (CPMs) in a controllable manner. The pore sizes and porous architectures of CPMs are well-controlled by rational choice of anions in poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs). Continuously, heteroatom-doped hierarchically porous carbon membrane (HCMs) can be readily fabricated via morphology-maintaining carbonization of as-prepared CPMs. These HCMs being as photothermal membranes exhibited excellent performance for solar seawater desalination, representing a promising strategy to construct advanced functional nanomaterials for portable water production technologies.