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Updated: Sep 20, 2025

Membrane Transport Processes Analyzed by a Highly Parallel Nanopore Chip System at Single Protein Resolution
Published on: August 16, 2016
Fluorofoldamer-Based Salt- and Proton-Rejecting Artificial Water Channels for Ultrafast Water Transport
Jie Shen1, Arundhati Roy2, Himanshu Joshi3
1School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710072, China.
Abstract:
Here, we report on a novel class of fluorofoldamer-based artificial water channels (AWCs) that combines excellent water transport rate and selectivity with structural simplicity and robustness. Produced by a facile one-pot copolymerization reaction under mild conditions, the best-performing channel (AWC 1) is an n-C8H17-decorated foldamer nanotube with an average channel length of 2.8 nm and a pore diameter of 5.2 Å. AWC 1 demonstrates an ultrafast water conduction rate of 1.4 × 1010 H2O/s per channel, outperforming the archetypal biological water channel, aquaporin 1, while excluding salts (i.e., NaCl and KCl) and protons. Unique to this class of channels, the inwardly facing C(sp2)-F atoms being the most electronegative in the periodic table are proposed as being critical to enabling the ultrafast and superselective water transport properties by decreasing the channel's cavity and enhancing the channel wall smoothness via reducing intermolecular forces with water molecules or hydrated ions.
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