Carbon nanotube (CNT)‐based filters have the potential to revolutionize water treatment because of their high capacity and fast kinetics in sorption of organic, inorganic, and biological pollutants. To date, CNT filters either rely on CNTs dispersed in liquids, which are difficult to recover and cause safety concerns, or on CNT buckypaper, which offers high efficiency, but suffers from an intrinsic trade‐off between filter permeability and capacity. Here, a new approach is presented that bypasses this trade‐off and achieves buckypaper‐like efficiency combined with filter‐column‐like permeability and capacity. For this, CNTs are first assembled into porous microspheres and then are packed into microfluidic column filters. These microcolumns exhibit large flow‐through filtration efficiencies, while maintaining membrane permeabilities an order of magnitude larger then CNT buckypaper and specific permeabilities double that of activated carbon for similar flowrates (232 000 L m⁻² h⁻¹ bar⁻¹, 1.23 × 10⁻¹² m²). Moreover, in a test to remove sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) from water, these microstructured CNT columns outperform activated carbon columns. This improved filtration efficiency and permeability is an important step toward a broader implementation of CNT‐based filtration devices.

中文翻译：

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单分散性CNT微球，适用于高渗透性和高效通透过滤应用

基于碳纳米管（CNT）的过滤器具有高容量和有机，无机和生物污染物吸附的快速动力学特性，因此有可能改变水处理的潜力。迄今为止，CNT过滤器要么依靠分散在液体中的CNT（难以回收并引起安全隐患），要么依靠CNT buckypaper，后者具有很高的效率，但在过滤器的渗透性和容量之间存在内在的取舍。在这里，提出了一种新方法，可以绕过这种折衷，并获得类似白纸的效率以及类似过滤器柱的渗透性和容量。为此，首先将CNT组装成多孔微球，然后将其包装到微流柱过滤器中。这些微柱具有很高的流通过滤效率，^-2 ħ ^-1扎^-1，1.23×10 ^-12米²）。此外，在从水中去除十二烷基硫酸钠（SDS）的测试中，这些微结构化CNT柱的性能优于活性炭柱。改进的过滤效率和渗透性是朝着更广泛地应用基于CNT的过滤设备迈出的重要一步。