Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Monitoring Protein Adsorption with Solid-state Nanopores
Published on: December 2, 2011
Water confinement in hydrophobic nanopores. Pressure-induced wetting and drying
Sergei Smirnov1, Ivan Vlassiouk, Pavel Takmakov
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA. snsm@nmsu.edu
Abstract:
Wetting and drying of hydrophobic pores with diameters lower than 0.2 μm by aqueous solutions at different hydrostatic pressures is investigated by measuring the ionic conductance variation through the nanopores. The critical pressure for water intrusion into the nanopores increases with lowering the pore diameter and the surface tension of the hydrophobic modification, in agreement with the Laplace equation. Nevertheless, restoring the pressure to the atmospheric one does not result in spontaneous pore dewetting unless bubbles are left inside the pores. Such bubbles can appear at the regions of narrowing cross section and/or varying quality of the hydrophobic modification and thus can be engineered to control water expulsion.
Related Concept Videos
Aquaporins
Osmosis and Osmotic Pressure of Solutions

