Gas permeability and selectivity of a porous WS₂ monolayer

Atomically thin porous membranes display high selectivity for gas transport and separation. To create such systems, defect engineering of 2D materials, e.g., via ion irradiation, provides an efficient route. Here,first-principles calculations are used to study permeability of He, H₂, N₂, CO₂, and CH₄ molecules through WS₂ monolayers containing vacancy-type defects. We found that i) for most pores, regardless of the pore size, H₂ exhibits large permeability (~10⁵ GPU), ii) dissociation of H₂ molecules and edge saturation occurs when they approach the angstrom-size pores, iii) the 1W6S pore (one W and six S atoms are removed from WS₂ monolayer) can separate H₂ and N₂ gases with high selectivity, and iv) the 2W6S pore exhibits exceptionally high selectivity for separation of H2/CO2 (~10¹³) and H₂/CH₄ (~10⁹).