Hierarchical Assembly of Sub‐2 nm Amorphous Nanobelt Membranes for Oil–Water Separation via Pore Engineering

ABSTRACT The trade‐off between flux and selectivity in oil–water separation membrane fundamentally originates from a structural incompatibility between interconnected transport pathways and densely distributed interfacial active sites. Herein, we construct a free‐standing membrane with a plain‐weave‐inspired pore architecture through the hierarchical assembly of sub‑2 nm ultrathin amorphous cobalt‐dodecanethiolate nanobelts. This architecture integrates hydrophobic surface groups and coordinatively unsaturated Co‐S sites within a hierarchical framework, simultaneously minimizing hydraulic resistance and maximizing accessible interfacial sites to enable rapid oil transport and selective water rejection. The optimized membrane delivers an ultrahigh flux of ∼7333 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 with 99% separation efficiency for a 1% water‐in‐dichloromethane emulsions, together with excellent antifouling stability (DR t = 11.06%, FRR = 99.56%) and preserved pore and coordination structures after repeated cycling. The membrane further exhibits consistently high fluxes across diverse organic solvents, including alkanes, alkenes, ethers, ketones, and thiols, indicating broad applicability in oil‐water separation. This work demonstrates how structural disorder in low‐dimensional amorphous materials can be harnessed as a design advantage for topology‐engineered separation membranes.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Functional Materials
Published
2026-09-12
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.78436
Primary Topic
Membrane Separation Technologies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Hierarchical Assembly of Sub‐2 nm Amorphous Nanobelt Membranes for Oil–Water Separation via Pore Engineering

Qianqian Zhang, Yifei Liu, Ziyu Wang, Jianxin Kang et al.
Advanced Functional Materials
Membrane Separation Technologies
article

Hierarchical Assembly of Sub‐2 nm Amorphous Nanobelt Membranes for Oil–Water Separation via Pore Engineering

Qianqian Zhang, Yifei Liu, Ziyu Wang, Jianxin Kang, Haolin Li, Yuyu Wang, Jiadong Tang, Fangcan Liang, Hongfei Gu, Boqun Wang, Hanke Cui, Ziming Su
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT The trade‐off between flux and selectivity in oil–water separation membrane fundamentally originates from a structural incompatibility between interconnected transport pathways and densely distributed interfacial active sites. Herein, we construct a free‐standing membrane with a plain‐weave‐inspired pore architecture through the hierarchical assembly of sub‑2 nm ultrathin amorphous cobalt‐dodecanethiolate nanobelts. This architecture integrates hydrophobic surface groups and coordinatively unsaturated Co‐S sites within a hierarchical framework, simultaneously minimizing hydraulic resistance and maximizing accessible interfacial sites to enable rapid oil transport and selective water rejection. The optimized membrane delivers an ultrahigh flux of ∼7333 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 with 99% separation efficiency for a 1% water‐in‐dichloromethane emulsions, together with excellent antifouling stability (DR t = 11.06%, FRR = 99.56%) and preserved pore and coordination structures after repeated cycling. The membrane further exhibits consistently high fluxes across diverse organic solvents, including alkanes, alkenes, ethers, ketones, and thiols, indicating broad applicability in oil‐water separation. This work demonstrates how structural disorder in low‐dimensional amorphous materials can be harnessed as a design advantage for topology‐engineered separation membranes.

Advanced Functional Materials
Alliance Bioversity International - CIAT (IT), Beijing University of Technology (CN), Beihang University (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
Clean water and sanitation
Openalex Percentile: Top 20%
Membrane Separation Technologies
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