Ion transport through thermally reduced and mechanically stretched graphene oxide membrane

We investigated the ion transport behavior of graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membranes along with thermal treatment and mechanical stretching. The GO membrane with about 400 nm thickness was fabricated onto a polytetrafluoroethylene membrane by vacuum filtration method and then thermally reduced at 120 and 230 °C, respectively. Various ions with different sizes were transported across the membranes via the electric field. As the results, we found that the ion transport linearly depends on the stretching up to 40% of the membrane in most ions. The thermal reduction of the membrane significantly affected the stabilization and modulation the rate of ion transport. Also, we discussed the ion transport mechanism of the stretchable rGO membranes based on the experimental data.