Molecular self-assembled cellulose enabling durable, scalable, high-power osmotic energy harvesting

Jianping Shi; Xuhui Sun; Yu Zhang; Shengyue Niu; Zequn Wang; Zhuotong Wu; Meng An; Lihui Chen; Jianguo Li

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2023.121656

Molecular self-assembled cellulose enabling durable, scalable, high-power osmotic energy harvesting

Carbohydr Polym. 2024 Mar 1:327:121656. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2023.121656. Epub 2023 Dec 5.

Authors

Jianping Shi¹, Xuhui Sun², Yu Zhang¹, Shengyue Niu¹, Zequn Wang², Zhuotong Wu³, Meng An⁴, Lihui Chen⁵, Jianguo Li⁶

Affiliations

¹ College of Material Engineering, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory of Plant Fiber Functional Materials, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
² College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China.
³ College of Material Engineering, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory of Plant Fiber Functional Materials, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁴ College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁵ College of Material Engineering, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory of Plant Fiber Functional Materials, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁶ College of Material Engineering, National Forestry and Grassland Administration Key Laboratory of Plant Fiber Functional Materials, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China. Electronic address: [email protected].

PMID: 38171677
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2023.121656

Abstract

In recent years, renewable cellulose-based ion exchange membranes have emerged as promising candidates for capturing green, abundant osmotic energy. However, the low power density and structural/performance instability are challenging for such cellulose membranes. Herein, cellulose-molecule self-assembly engineering (CMA) is developed to construct environmentally friendly, durable, scalable cellulose membranes (CMA membranes). Such a strategy enables CMA membranes with ideal nanochannels (∼7 nm) and tailored channel lengths, which support excellent ion selectivity and ion fluxes toward high-performance osmotic energy harvesting. Finite element simulations also verified the function of tailored nanochannel length on osmotic energy conversion. Correspondingly, our CMA membrane shows a high-power density of 2.27 W/m² at a 50-fold KCl gradient and super high voltage of 1.32 V with 30-pair CMA membranes (testing area of 22.2 cm²). In addition, the CMA membrane demonstrates long-term structural and dimensional integrity in saline solution, due to their high wet strength (4.2 MPa for N-CMA membrane and 0.5 MPa for P-CMA membrane), and correspondingly generates ultrastable yet high power density more than 100 days. The self-assembly engineering of cellulose molecules constructs high-performance ion-selective membranes with environmentally friendly, scalable, high wet strength and stability advantages, which guide sustainable nanofluidic applications beyond the blue energy.

Keywords: Cellulose; Molecular self-assembly; Osmotic energy; Scalability; Stability.