For even more efficient desalination of seawater or better performance of new types of fuel cells, researchers at the Ruhr University Bochum have produced a layer of 2D silicon dioxide. This contains natural pores and can therefore be used like a sieve for molecules and ions. Details were published in the journal “Nano Letters“.
Consisting also of researchers from Bielefeld University and Yale University, the team has taken advantage of the fact that the crystal lattice of 2D silica naturally has openings. With the help of these openings, certain gases can be separated from each other.
“Silicon dioxide naturally has a very high density of tiny pores that you couldn’t create in artificial membranes. Unlike graphene, the pores are all nearly the same size. And there are so incredibly many of them that the material behaves like a fine-mesh sieve for molecules”, says Petr…
Silicia layer improves fuel cells
