Patent ID: 11938451
Assignee: NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE
Field: Chemical engineering (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC B | IPC B

Claim 0:
1. A method of separating hydrated ions from a fluid stream, the method comprising:
providing a plurality of graphene-based membranes, each graphene-based membrane comprising a stacked arrangement of layers of a graphene-based material, the layers of the graphene-based material defining one or more nanochannels between neighboring layers,
chemically engineering one or more of the plurality of graphene-based membranes to possess a desired electrical charge to increase a filtering efficiency for hydrated anions at substantially a same size of the one or more nanochannels for maintaining a desired flow though the graphene-based membrane,
chemically engineering one or more of the plurality of the graphene-based membranes to possess a desired electrical charge to increase a filtering efficiency for hydrated cations at substantially a same size of the one or more nanochannels for maintaining a desired flow though the graphene based membrane,
disposing the plurality of graphene-based membranes such that one or more adjacent cell pairs are provided, each cell pair comprising one graphene-based membrane for filtering the anions and one graphene-based membrane for filtering the cations separated by a passageway, and
directing a fluid stream comprising the hydrated ions through the respective passageways for filtering of the hydrated ions from the fluid stream.