Treatment of nontraditional source waters (e.g., produced water, municipal and industrial wastewaters, agricultural runoff) offers exciting opportunities to expand water and energy resources via water reuse and resource recovery. While conventional polymer membranes perform water/ion separations well, they do not provide solute-specific separation, a key component for these treatment opportunities. Herein, we discuss the selectivity limitations plaguing all conventional membranes, which include poor removal of small, neutral solutes and insufficient discrimination between ions of the same valence. Moreover, we present synthetic approaches for solute-tailored selectivity including the incorporation of single-digit nanopores and solute-selective ligands into membranes. Recent progress in these areas highlights the need for fundamental studies to rationally design membranes with selective moieties achieving desired separations.

中文翻译：

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设计膜中的溶质定制选择性：水再利用和资源回收的前景

处理非传统水源（例如采出水、市政和工业废水、农业径流）为通过水再利用和资源回收扩大水和能源资源提供了令人兴奋的机会。虽然传统的聚合物膜可以很好地进行水/离子分离，但它们不能提供溶质特异性分离，而溶质分离是这些处理机会的关键组成部分。在这里，我们讨论了困扰所有传统膜的选择性限制，包括对小的中性溶质的去除效果不佳以及对同价离子的区分不足。此外，我们提出了溶质定制选择性的合成方法，包括将个位数纳米孔和溶质选择性配体掺入膜中。