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Yang, Xiaobin

Publications and source records attributed to Yang, Xiaobin.

10 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Chelation-directed interface engineering of in-place self-cleaning membranes

Water–energy sustainability will depend upon the rapid development of advanced pressure-driven separation membranes. Although energy-efficient, water-treatment membranes are constrained by ubiquitous fouling, which may be alleviated by engineering self-cleaning membrane interfaces. In this study, a metal-polyphenol network was designed to direct the armorization of catalytic nanofilms (ca. 18 nm) on inert polymeric membranes. The chelation-directed mineralized coating exhibits high polarity, superhydrophilicity, and ultralow adhesion to crude oil, enabling cyclable crude oil-in-water emulsion separation. The in-place flux recovery rate exceeded 99.9%, alleviating the need for traditional ex situ cleaning. The chelation-directed nanoarmored membrane exhibited 48-fold and 6.8-fold figures of merit for in-place self-cleaning regeneration compared to the control membrane and simple hydraulic cleaning, respectively. Precursor interaction mechanisms were identified by density functional theory calculations. Here, chelation-directed armorization offers promise for sustainable applications in catalysis, biomedicine, environmental remediation, and beyond.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Protein-activated atomic layer deposition for robust crude-oil-repellent hierarchical nano-armored membranes

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) offers unique capabilities to fabricate atomically engineered porous materials with precise pore tuning and multi-functionalization for diverse applications like advanced membrane separations towards sustainable energy-water systems. However, current ALD technique is inhibited on most non-polar polymeric membranes due to lack of accessible nucleation sites. Here, in this study, we report a facile method to efficiently promote ALD coating on hydrophobic surface of polymeric membranes via novel protein activation/sensitization. As a proof of concept, TiO 2 ALD-coated membranes activated by bovine serum albumin exhibit remarkable superhydrophilicity, ultralow underwater crude oil adhesion, and robust tolerance to rigorous environments including acid, alkali, saline, and ethanol. Most importantly, excellent cyclable crude oil-in-water emulsion separation performance can be achieved. The mechanism for activation/sensitization is rooted in reactivity for a particular set of amino acids. Furthermore, the universality of protein-sensitized ALD is demonstrated using common egg white, promising numerous potential usages in biomedical engineering, environmental remediation, lowcarbon manufacturing, catalysis, and beyond.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Engineering In Situ Catalytic Cleaning Membrane Via Prebiotic-Chemistry-Inspired Mineralization

Pressure-driven membrane separation promises a sustainable energy-water nexus but is hindered by ubiquitous fouling. Natural systems evolved from prebiotic chemistry offer a glimpse of creative solutions. Herein, a prebiotic-chemistry-inspired aminomalononitrile (AMN)/Mn 2+ -mediated mineralization method is reported for universally engineering a superhydrophilic hierarchical MnO 2 nanocoating to endow hydrophobic polymeric membranes with exceptional catalytic cleaning ability. Green hydrogen peroxide catalytically triggered in-situ cleaning of the mineralized membrane and enabled operando flux recovery to reach 99.8%. The mineralized membrane exhibited a 9-fold higher recovery compared to the unmineralized membrane, which is attributed to active catalytic antifouling coupled with passive hydration antifouling. Electron density differences derived from the precursor interaction during mediated mineralization unveiled an electron-rich bell-like structure with an inner electron-deficient Mn core. This work paves the way to construct multifunctional engineered materials for energy-efficient water treatment as well as for diverse promising applications in catalysis, solar steam generation, biomedicine, and beyond.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Water treatment based on atomically engineered materials: Atomic layer deposition and beyond

Global water stress and challenges for producing sufficient supplies of fit-for-purpose water are amplifying. Atomically engineered interfaces are emerging as a powerful tool in the fabrication of advanced water treatment materials. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) and recently developed related methods, such as sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS), offer a tremendously diverse library of chemistries for interface functionalization. Thickness, stoichiometry, and physicochemical properties can be manipulated with precision. We review their fundamental physical chemistry and processing factors. ALD/SIS engineering strategies, including direct deposition, growth with intermediate layers, and secondary treatment are presented with realization of efficient water treatment. We lay out a pathway to establishing an ALD/SIS-based universal functionalization platform for water treatment, including sensitization strategies, in situ regulation, secondary reactions, and simulation/machine learning. Furthermore, we also provide a perspective on ALD/SIS-based interface engineering via synergy with other widely used interface engineering techniques to develop facile, versatile, and energy-efficient strategies for tackling increasingly complex water challenges.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Porous Janus materials with unique asymmetries and functionality

Porous Janus materials have attracted widespread attention due to their asymmetry in wettability, charge, pore size or structure, thermal/electrical conductivity, and chemical activity, among other properties. Multifunction integration and unique directional manipulation of liquid, ions, or gas within porous Janus materials enable rapid progress in diverse applications such as water-oil separation, fog collection, personal moisture and healthcare management, energy conversion, desalination, sensor devices, and biomedical applications. Additionally, compared with conventional homogeneous materials, porous Janus materials not only showcase superior performance and energetic potential but also open up new applications by virtue of the synergistic or independent effects of asymmetry. This in-depth review systematically analyzes the research progress of porous Janus materials, highlighting fabrication strategies, synergistic/independent work mechanisms, and emerging advanced applications. Finally, ongoing challenges and outlook for the future research of porous Janus materials are presented.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Multi-hydrophilic functional network enables porous membranes excellent anti-fouling performance for highly efficient water remediation

Membrane technology is believed as a cost-effective approach for solving the water issues, where as it suffers from serious membrane fouling. Surface grafting and surface coating have been proved to be effective in abating the membrane fouling; however, these processes always need additional procedures and compromise the initial permeance of the membranes. Herein, we developed a kind of highly permeable polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes with excellent anti-fouling performance through one-step phase inversion of the PAN casting solution containing water-soluble active additives. During the process, the water-soluble active additives could segregate towards the membrane surface and pore walls; thereby finely tailoring the pore structures of the PAN-based membranes. Moreover, the active additives could react with each other to form crosslinked networks containing multi-hydrophilic functional groups including CH2-O-CH2, -OH or-Si-OH. Consequently, the PAN-based membranes exhibited surprising superhydrophilicity with water contact angle below 10. even after soaking in water for one week and the anti-fouling permeance of the membranes increased significantly with permeance recovery rate above 93%. Interestingly, the modified membranes also demonstrated both high permeances and high separation efficiency, thereby showing strong promise in water environmental remediation including wastewater treatment and oil/water emulsion separation.

Anti-fouling↗
DOE OSTI2020

Visible-Light-Activated Photocatalytic Films toward Self-Cleaning Membranes

Membranes are among the most promising means of delivering increased supplies of fit-for-purpose water, but membrane fouling remains a critical issue restricting their widespread application. Coupling photocatalysis with membrane separation has been proposed as a potentially effective approach to reduce membrane fouling. However, commonly used materials in photocatalysis limit use of low-cost sources such as sunlight due to their large band gaps. There are few examples of in situ photocatalytic self-cleaning of membranes, with removal from the filtration system and ex situ illumination being more common. In this study, a visible-light-activated photocatalytic film prepared by nitrogen doping into the lattice of TiO 2 was deposited on commercial ceramic membranes via atomic layer deposition (ALD). The synergy between membrane separation and redox reactions between organic pollutants and reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the visible-light-activated layer offers a possibility for stable and sustainable membrane operation under in situ solar irradiation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

A de novo sacrificial-MOF strategy to construct enhanced-flux nanofiltration membranes for efficient dye removal

Nanofiltration membanes play a critical role in alleviating global water scarcity, affecting more than 4 billion people. Here, a new metal organic framework (MOF) sacrificicial strategy is designed to synthesize flux-enhancing nanofiltration membrane for efficient dye removal. With the aid of polyphenol chemistry, ZIF-67 MOF was first coated onto a porous support and in situ transformed into a selective layer by virtue of pyrrole polymerization. Trigerred by ammonium persulfate, polypyrrole selective layer functioalized nanofiltration membrane was fabricated when accompanying pore regulation by MOF self-sacrifice. The membrane demonstrated a flux enhancement of 745% than pristine polypyrrole (PPy) one with maintained rejection. Furthermore, the synergistic interactions among polypyrrole, polyphenol, and porous support endowed membrane with excellent stability during long term test. The designed MOF sacrificed route may open a new avenue for fabricating advanced energetic-efficient membranes with the reconstructed architecture towards diverse separation applications.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Polyphenol-Sensitized Atomic Layer Deposition for Membrane Interface Hydrophilization

Improvements in energy-water systems will necessitate fabrication of high-performance separation membranes. To this end, interface engineering is a powerful tool for tailoring properties, and atomic layer deposition (ALD) has recently emerged as a promising and versatile approach. However, most non-polar polymeric membranes are not amenable to ALD processing due to the absence of nucleation sites. Here, a sensitization strategy for ALD-coating is presented, illustrated by membrane interface hydrophilization. Facile dip-coating with polyphenols effectively sensitizes hydrophobic polymer membranes to TiO2 ALD coating. Tannic acid-sensitized ALD-coated membranes exhibit outstanding underwater crude oil repulsion and rigorous mechanical stability through bending and rinsing tests. As a result, these membranes demonstrate outstanding crude oil-in-water separation and reusability compared to untreated membranes or those treated with ALD without polyphenol pretreatment. A possible polyphenol-sensitized ALD mechanism is proposed involving initial island nucleation followed by film intergrowth. This polyphenol sensitization strategy enriches the functionalization toolbox in material science, interface engineering, and environmental science.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗