Nature Communications (Oct 2016)

Interplay between hydrophilicity and surface barriers on water transport in zeolite membranes

  • Matteo Fasano,
  • Thomas Humplik,
  • Alessio Bevilacqua,
  • Michael Tsapatsis,
  • Eliodoro Chiavazzo,
  • Evelyn N. Wang,
  • Pietro Asinari

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12762
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Zeolite crystal with porous structure is predicted to be a good membrane material for water purification, but experiments show water uptake orders of magnitude smaller than the theory. Here, Fasano et al. attribute this disagreement to the additional diffusion resistance induced by surface defects.