LAUSR

Abstract Graphene oxide has great potentials for preparing multilayers with polyelectrolytes due to its abundant carboxyl groups. The as-resulting polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs) showed excellent performance and significant improved stability in membrane separation applications. However, the stability enhancement of GO nanosheets in the GO incorporated PEMs is still lack of systematic discussion. In this study, the enhancements of GO were confirmed by comparing the pristine and GO incorporated PEMs membranes through layer-by-layer self-assembly strategy. The membranes were post-treated with NaClO/NaOH/HCl solutions, and the morphologies, chemical properties, and separation capabilities of the multilayer membranes before and after treatment were compared. The results indicate that the probable mechanism for the enhancements is attributed to the confinement effects of GO nanosheets on the migration and rearrangement of polyelectrolyte chains. Thus, we anticipate that this study could provide a comprehensive understanding of GO based multilayers and an approach to prepare stable PEMs membranes with GO nanosheets and other 2D materials.