Imperial College London
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ProfessorJoaoCabral

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Professor of Soft Matter
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 5571j.cabral Website

 
 
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Assistant

 

Mrs Sarah Payne +44 (0)20 7594 5567

 
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Location

 

517AACE ExtensionSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Foglia:2022:10.1038/s41467-022-30555-6,
author = {Foglia, F and Frick, B and Nania, M and Livingston, A and Cabral, J},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-022-30555-6},
journal = {Nature Communications},
title = {Multimodal confined water dynamics in reverse osmosis polyamide membranes},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30555-6},
volume = {13},
year = {2022}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - While polyamide (PA) membranes are widespread in water purification and desalination by reverse osmosis, a molecular-level understanding of the dynamics of both confined water and polymer matrix remains elusive. Despite the dense hierarchical structure of PA membranes formed by interfacial polymerization, previous studies suggest that water diffusion remains largely unchanged with respect to bulk water. Here, we employ neutron spectroscopy to investigate PA membranes under precise hydration conditions, and a series of isotopic contrasts, to elucidate water transport and polymer relaxation, spanning ps-ns timescales, and Å-nm lengthscales. We experimentally resolve, for the first time, the multimodal diffusive nature of water in PA membranes: in addition to (slowed down) translational jump-diffusion, we observe a long-range and a localized mode, whose geometry and timescales we quantify. The PA matrix is also found to exhibit rotational relaxations commensurate with the nanoscale confinement observed in water diffusion. This comprehensive ‘diffusion map’ can anchor molecular and nanoscale simulations, and enable the predictive design of PA membranes with tuneable performance.
AU  - Foglia,F
AU  - Frick,B
AU  - Nania,M
AU  - Livingston,A
AU  - Cabral,J
DO  - 10.1038/s41467-022-30555-6
PY  - 2022///
SN  - 2041-1723
TI  - Multimodal confined water dynamics in reverse osmosis polyamide membranes
T2  - Nature Communications
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30555-6
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/97134
VL  - 13
ER  -
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