Bioinspired Interfacial Modulation in Solid-State Nanochannels: Toward Accountable Environmental Sensing

Real-time and accurate monitoring of environmental pollutants is crucial for ecosystem protection and public health. Inspired by biological ion channels exhibiting ion selectivity, ion gating, and ion current rectification, solid-state nanochannels have emerged as promising label-free sensing platforms that can transduce recognition-induced interfacial modulation into measurable ion-transport signatures. This perspective highlights advances from the past 5 years and organizes recent progress around coupled control of three interfacial variables that dominate signal formation under nanoconfinement: steric hindrance, surface charge, and wettability. Representative design strategies, operating principles, and analytical performance are summarized across three major application classes including ions and gases, organic micropollutants, and pathogenic microorganisms. We then discuss barriers hindering quantitative analysis in environmental samples and outline directions to keep ion-transport signatures accountable in heterogeneous matrices, with emphasis on robustness, interpretability, and interference resistance.