Tiny pores in graphene could give rise to membranes

Much has been made of graphene's exceptional qualities, from its ability to conduct heat and electricity better than any other material to its unparalleled strength: Worked into a composite material, graphene can repel bullets better than Kevlar. Previous research has also shown that pristine graphene - a microscopic sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern - is among the most impermeable materials ever discovered, making the substance ideal as a barrier film.

But the material may not be as impenetrable as scientists have thought. By engineering relatively large membranes from single sheets of graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition, researchers from MIT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and elsewhere have found that the material bears intrinsic defects, or holes in its atom-sized armor. In experiments, the researchers found that small molecules like salts passed easily through a graphene membrane's tiny pores, while larger molecules were unable to penetrate.

The results, the researchers say, point not to a flaw in graphene, but to the possibility of promising applications, such as membranes that filter microscopic contaminants from water, or that separate specific types of molecules from biological samples.

''No one has looked for holes in graphene before,'' says Rohit Karnik, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. ''There's a lot of chemical methods that can be used to modify these pores, so it's a platform technology for a new class of membranes.''

Karnik and his colleagues, including researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, have published their results in the journal ACS Nano.

Karnik worked with MIT graduate student Sean O'Hern to look for materials ''that could lead to not just incremental changes, but substantial leaps in terms of the way membranes perform.'' In particular, the team cast around for materials with two key attributes, high flux and tunability: that is, membranes that quickly filter fluids, but are also easily tailored to let certain molecules through while trapping others. The group settled on graphene, in part because of its extremely thin structure and its strength: A sheet of graphene is as thin as a single atom, but strong enough to let high volumes of fluids through without shredding apart.