Advances and challenges in the development of nanosheet membranes

The development of highly efficient separation membranes utilizing emerging materials with controllable pore size and minimized thickness could greatly enhance the broad applications of membrane-based technologies. Having this perspective, many studies on the incorporation of nanosheets in membrane fabrication have been conducted, and strong interest in this area has grown over the past decade. This article reviews the development of nanosheet membranes focusing on two-dimensional materials as a continuous phase, due to their promising properties, such as atomic or nanoscale thickness and large lateral dimensions, to achieve improved performance compared to their discontinuous counterparts. Material characteristics and strategies to process nanosheet materials into separation membranes are reviewed, followed by discussions on the membrane performances in diverse applications. The review concludes with a discussion of remaining challenges and future outlook for nanosheet membrane technologies.