Related papers: Ambipolar Ion Pumping with Ratchet Driven Active M…
Electrochemical reactions are highly sensitive to the physical and chemical environment near the electrodes. Thus, controlling the electrolyte ionic composition and the electrochemical potential of specific ions can modify the overpotential…
The selective separation of same-charge ions is a longstanding challenge in resource recovery, battery recycling, and water treatment. Theoretical studies have shown that ratchet-based ion pumps (RBIPs) can separate ions with the same…
Directed ion transport in liquid electrolyte solutions underlies many phenomena in Nature and industry. While Nature has devised structures that drive continuous ion flow without Faradaic redox reactions, artificial analogs do not exist.…
The development of a selective, membrane-based ion separation technology may prove useful in a wide range of applications such as water treatment, battery recycling, ion specific chemical sensors, extraction of valuable metals from sea…
To overcome the traditional paradigm of filtration, where separation is essentially performed upon steric sieving principles, we explore the concept of dynamic osmosis through active membranes. A partially permeable membrane presents a…
Ion transporters in Nature exhibit a wealth of complex transport properties such as voltage gating, activation, and mechanosensitive behavior. When combined, such processes result in advanced ionic machines achieving active ion transport,…
The transport of molecules in confined media is subject to entropic barriers. So theoretically, asymmetry of the confinement length may lead to molecular ratchets with entropy as the only driving force for the biased transport. We address…
Nanoporous membranes, leveraging their high-throughput characteristics, have been widely applied in fields such as molecular separation and energy conversion. Due to interpore interactions, besides the applied voltage and solution…
The permeation, rejection, and transport of electrolytes in water-filled nanopores are critical to ion current gating and desalinalion processes in synthetic porous membranes and the functions of biological ion channels. Mile the effects of…
We model and simulate a nanopore sensor that selectively binds analyte ions. This binding leads to the modulation of the local concentrations of the ions of the background electrolyte (KCl), and, thus, to the modulation of the ionic current…
We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of lipid membranes with proteins that actively pump ions across the membrane. We find that the activity leads to a fluctuating force distribution due to electrostatic interactions arising from variation…
One path to realizing systems of trapped atomic ions suitable for large-scale quantum computing and simulation is to create a two-dimensional array of ion traps. Interactions between nearest-neighbouring ions could then be turned on and off…
Rapid injection of spin polarization into an ensemble of nuclear spins is a problem of broad interest, spanning dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) to quantum information science. We report on a strategy to boost the spin injection rate by…
An intense controversy has surrounded the mechanism of voltage-gating in ion channels. We interpreted the two leading models of voltage-gating with respect to the thermodynamic energetics of membrane insertion of the voltage-sensing…
Biological systems rely on ions and molecules as information carriers rather than electrons, motivating the development of devices that interface with biochemical systems for sensing, information processing, and actuation via spatiotemporal…
In living organisms, information is processed in interconnected symphonies of ionic currents spiking through protein ion channels. As a result of dynamically switching their conductive states, ion channels exhibit a variety of…
Bipolar nanopores, with asymmetric charge distributions, can induce significant ionic current rectification (ICR) at ultra-short lengths, finding potential applications in nanofluidic devices, energy conversion, and other related fields.…
Here we study a pumping device capable of maintaining a density gradient and a flux of particles across a membrane. Its driving mechanism is based on the flashing ratchet effect powered by the random telegraph process in the presence of…
Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…
Ionic polymer-metal composites consist in a thin film of electro-active polymers (Nafion R for example) sandwiched between two metallic electrodes. They can be used as sensors or actuators. The polymer is saturated with water, which causes…