Professor Yugang Wang and his research team at SKLNPT, Peking University report a fully abiotic single-pore nanofluidic energy-harvesting system that efficiently converts Gibbs free energy in the form of a salinity gradient into electricity. The maximum power output with the individual nanopore approaches about 26 picowatts. By exploiting parallelization, the estimated power density can be enhanced by two to three orders over previous ion-exchange membranes. The findings are published in Advanced Functional Materials (Adv.Funct.Mater. 2010, 20, 1339), one of the top journals in material research worldwide. The referees of this manuscript consider that the present work contributes an interesting and very elegant methodology to convert ion concentration gradients into electricity. “The inspiration of the nanofluidic energy-harvesting system comes from the electrical eels that have the inherent skill to generate considerable bioelectricity from the salt content in fluids with highly selective ion channels and pumps on their cell membranes”, Dr. Wei Guo, a former PKU doctoral student in professor Wang’s group who is now also an assistant professor at Chinese Academe of Sciences, explains.

Another achievement form the same group focuses on smart single-nanopore devices. In collaboration with chemists from University of Science and Technology China and Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academe of Sciences, quite recently, they demonstrated a compound nanofluidic device that integrates two different types of molecular machines, the ionic gate and the ionic rectifier, within one solid-state nanopore. The dual-functional nanofluidic device can return two distinctive feedback signals, the changes in ion permeability and in ionic rectifying capability, in response to separate input stimuli, the temperature and pH. The functions of the present synthetic single-nanopore device resemble the inwardly rectifying potassium channels (Kir), which are identified in many types of mammalian cell and has also been implicated in several diseases. The present work extends the scope of their previous studies on stimuli-responsive single nanopore devices (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 8345; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 7800; Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 1682; ChemPhysChem 2010, 11, 859 (cover story)) and gets published again in Advanced Functional Materials (Adv.Funct.Mater. 2010, 20, 3561).

Their work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Technology.