Abstract
Biological sodium channels ferry sodium ions across the lipid membrane while rejecting potassium ions and other metal ions. Realizing such ion selectivity in an artificial solid-state ionic device will enable new separation technologies but remains highly challenging. In this work, we report an artificial sodium-selective ionic device, built on synthesized porous crown-ether crystals which consist of densely packed 0.26-nm-wide pores. The Na+ selectivity of the artificial sodium-selective ionic device reached 15 against K + , which is comparable to the biological counterpart, 523 against Ca2 + , which is nearly two orders of magnitude higher than the biological one, and 1128 against Mg2 + . The selectivity may arise from the size effect and molecular recognition effect. This work may contribute to the understanding of the structure-performance relationship of ion selective nanopores.
Highlights
Biological sodium channels ferry sodium ions across the lipid membrane while rejecting potassium ions and other metal ions
A conceptually straightforward method is to synthesize an organic architecture spanning through lipid bilayer membrane with ion transport activity, which mimics the configuration of biological ion channels[8,9,10,11]
The crown ether used in this study is 1,10-diaza-18-crown-6-ether
Summary
Biological sodium channels ferry sodium ions across the lipid membrane while rejecting potassium ions and other metal ions. It is expected that if porous crown-ether crystals are rationally designed, it should be possible to realize artificial sodium-selective ionic device. We report an artificial sodium-selective ionic device consisting of porous crown-ether crystals that favors the transport of Na+ over a variety of biogenic metal ions, i.e., K+, Ca2+, and Mg2+.
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