Engineering multi-pathway graphene oxide membranes toward ultrafast water purification

Graphene oxide (GO) membranes hold great promise in molecular separation owing to the ultrathin thickness as well as precisely controllable interlayer distance . However, the tortuous mass transport pathway along stacked nanosheets hinders the availability of high-flux GO membranes. Herein, we design multi-pathway GO membranes to afford fast water transport through in-plane and interlayer pathways. The in-plane pathway is introduced by the porous GO (pGO) nanosheets and the interlayer pathway is enlarged by intercalating hydrophilic halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) into adjacent pGO nanosheets , jointly contributing to the enhanced water permeance. Through manipulating the intercalator amount, the optimized membrane displays ultrahigh water permeance of 206.7 L m −2  h −1 bar −1 and dye rejections over 98.5%. Furthermore, the resultant membranes exhibit resistance against broad-spectrum oil-in-water emulsions. Our study can pave a facile and prospective way to fabricating high-performance two-dimensional laminated membranes.