Fig. 4: High-performance osmotic energy conversion of the VMT-based membrane.
a, b Current density and output power density of VMT-based membrane as functions of load resistance under three salinity gradients. The low-salinity solution was placed in the VMT side and fixed at 0.01 M NaCl. High-salinity solution was tunable from 0.05 to 5 M NaCl. c The long-term stability of the energy conversion at 500-fold salinity gradient. d Comparison with previous studies (details in Supplementary Table 2). The ratio of Pmax at 500-fold and 50-fold salinity gradient (Pmax−500/Pmax-50) and power densities of the membranes. e Output power density under different types of electrolytes. f The AIMD snapshots that showed the distribution of ions in VMT nanochannel. The interlayer spacing was 1.53 nm, which was the same as the XRD results (Supplementary Fig. 8). g The MSD curves of ions. The inset showed the MSD curves of water. The value of diffusion coefficient was proportion to the slope of MSD. h Power density under three different highly concentrated natural brines. Error bars indicated the standard deviations from three different samples.
