Molecular transport enhancement in pure metallic carbon nanotube porins

Yuhao Li^#¹, Zhongwu Li^#¹, Rahul Prasanna Misra^#², Chenxing Liang^#³, Alice J Gillen^{1

4}, Sidi Zhao^{1

5}, Jobaer Abdullah^{1

6}, Ted Laurence¹, Jeffrey A Fagan⁷, Narayana Aluru⁸, Daniel Blankschtein⁹, Aleksandr Noy^{10

11}

Affiliations

¹ Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁴ Vivani Medical Inc., Emeryville, CA, USA.
⁵ School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁶ School of Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁷ Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA.
⁸ Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. aluru@utexas.edu.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. dblank@mit.edu.
¹⁰ Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA. noy1@llnl.gov.
¹¹ School of Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA. noy1@llnl.gov.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38937586
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01925-w

Molecular transport enhancement in pure metallic carbon nanotube porins

Yuhao Li et al. Nat Mater. 2024 Aug.

. 2024 Aug;23(8):1123-1130.

doi: 10.1038/s41563-024-01925-w. Epub 2024 Jun 27.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
³ Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁴ Vivani Medical Inc., Emeryville, CA, USA.
⁵ School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁶ School of Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁷ Materials Science and Engineering Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD, USA.
⁸ Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. aluru@utexas.edu.
⁹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. dblank@mit.edu.
¹⁰ Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA. noy1@llnl.gov.
¹¹ School of Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA. noy1@llnl.gov.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 38937586
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-024-01925-w

Abstract

Nanofluidic channels impose extreme confinement on water and ions, giving rise to unusual transport phenomena strongly dependent on the interactions at the channel-wall interface. Yet how the electronic properties of the nanofluidic channels influence transport efficiency remains largely unexplored. Here we measure transport through the inner pores of sub-1 nm metallic and semiconducting carbon nanotube porins. We find that water and proton transport are enhanced in metallic nanotubes over semiconducting nanotubes, whereas ion transport is largely insensitive to the nanotube bandgap value. Molecular simulations using polarizable force fields highlight the contributions of the anisotropic polarizability tensor of the carbon nanotubes to the ion-nanotube interactions and the water friction coefficient. We also describe the origin of the proton transport enhancement in metallic nanotubes using deep neural network molecular dynamics simulations. These results emphasize the complex role of the electronic properties of nanofluidic channels in modulating transport under extreme nanoscale confinement.

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References

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Molecular transport enhancement in pure metallic carbon nanotube porins

Affiliations

Molecular transport enhancement in pure metallic carbon nanotube porins

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

References

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

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