I am happy to share that, after a year-long peer review process, our latest paper titled The role of hydration in the removal of glyphosate (GLY) and aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) by nanofiltration membranes has been accepted for publication in Nature Communications (2025 IF of 15.7).
What the paper is about
We examined how hydration governed the nanofiltration of small and charged pesticide micropollutants—glyphosate, the most widely used pesticide, and its metabolite AMPA.
To isolate the removal contributed by the water shells (dielectric exclusion), six nanofiltration membranes with different pore sizes were examined under various operational conditions. At low solution pH, the pesticides have close to neutral charge and charge interactions with the membrane are minimised. There, we observed clear evidence that the strongly bound water molecules hindered the pesticide’s movement through some particular membranes.
The strength of the water shells at different pH was further characterised by collaborators who are experts in infra-red spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.
Our results underscore the importance of hydration and offer insights for enhancing nanofiltration membranes for removing micropollutants.