Biomimetic Membrane Channels based on Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Biological membrane channels and pore-forming proteins display a level of sophistication in managing molecular scale transport that is typically unmatched by inorganic analogs, and efforts to develop nanopores that approach the transport efficiency of biological molecules often run into fabrication or synthetic difficulties. A different approach is exploiting nanomaterial scaffolds that provide near-atomic level of control over the structure and surface properties of these structures. Carbon nanotubes provide an especially interesting system for such studies due to their inherently smooth hydrophobic pore walls that support extremely high transport rates, which are comparable to biological channels. We describe the preparation of nanotube-based membrane nanopores, their assembly into biological membranes, and single-channel measurements of molecular transport in these assemblies.