Nanotube Porins—A Bioinspired Membrane Channel Model

Extreme spatial confinement in narrow fluidic channels strongly influences their transport properties and enables unconventional selectivity mechanisms reminiscent of the selectivity and transport characteristics of biological membrane channels. We are using nanomaterials to develop experimental platforms that recreate such extreme confinement in a range of nanotube-based channels with defined geometry and controllable electronic properties. I will discuss several of these nanotube-based channel models and show how confinement phenomena, coupled with the different electronic properties, surface charge, and dynamic charge equilibria in these channels can shape their transport properties and ion selectivity characteristics. Overall, these observations can pave the way for developing a new generation of materials for precision separations for biomedical and industrial use.