Issue

Vol. 17 (2025)

Anti-Swelling Polyelectrolyte Hydrogel with Submillimeter Lateral Confinement for Osmotic Energy Conversion

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-024-01577-0
Yongxu Liu
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Jiangnan Song
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710021, People’s Republic of China
Zhen Liu
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Jialin Chen
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Dejuan Wang
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Hui Zhi
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Jiebin Tang
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Yafang Zhang
School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Ningbo Li
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Weijia Zhou
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Meng An
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710021, People’s Republic of China
Hong Liu
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China
Guobin Xue
Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research (iAIR), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Jinan, Jinan 250022, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Guobin Xue

ifc_xuegb@ujn.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 17 (2025), Article Number: 81

Abstract

Harvesting the immense and renewable osmotic energy with reverse electrodialysis (RED) technology shows great promise in dealing with the ever-growing energy crisis. One key challenge is to improve the output power density with improved trade-off between membrane permeability and selectivity. Herein, polyelectrolyte hydrogels (channel width, 2.2 nm) with inherent high ion conductivity have been demonstrated to enable excellent selective ion transfer when confined in cylindrical anodized aluminum pore with lateral size even up to the submillimeter scale (radius, 0.1 mm). The membrane permeability of the anti-swelling hydrogel can also be further increased with cellulose nanofibers. With real seawater and river water, the output power density of a three-chamber cell on behalf of repeat unit of RED system can reach up to 8.99 W m−2 (per unit total membrane area), much better than state-of-the-art membranes. This work provides a new strategy for the preparation of polyelectrolyte hydrogel-based ion-selective membranes, owning broad application prospects in the fields of osmotic energy collection, electrodialysis, flow battery and so on.


Highlights:
1 Ionic polymers can directly serve as high-performance ion-selective membranes when it was physically confined within submillimeter-sized cylindrical pore.
2 The universality of this strategy is demonstrated in preparing cation/anion-selective membrane.
3 With real seawater and river water, the output power density of a three-chamber cell on behalf of repeat unit of reverse electrodialysis system can reach up to 8.99 W m−2.

Keywords

Ionic polymer Hydrogel Confinement effect Anti-swelling Osmotic energy conversion
Liu, Yongxu, Jiangnan Song, Zhen Liu, Jialin Chen, Dejuan Wang, Hui Zhi, Jiebin Tang, Yafang Zhang, Ningbo Li, Weijia Zhou, Meng An, Hong Liu, and Guobin Xue. 2024. “Anti-Swelling Polyelectrolyte Hydrogel With Submillimeter Lateral Confinement for Osmotic Energy Conversion”. Nano-Micro Letters 17 (December):81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-024-01577-0.
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