Evidence of selective cation transport through sub-2 nm single-walled carbon nanotubes

Khadija Yazda (1) , Said Tahir (1) , Thierry Michel (1) , Francois Henn (1) , Vincent Jourdain (1)

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb

The electrophoretic transport of ions through single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) of diameters between 1.2 and 1.8 nm was studied for different monovalent chloride salts using microfluidic devices incorporating either a single or a few CNTs in parallel. The ionic conductance was found to be about one order of magnitude higher than expected from a simple electro-migration behavior without any surface effect. Importantly, the ionic conductance measured for different cations did not scale with their bulk electrophoretic mobility thus indicating a probable selective cation transport through these sub-2 nm SWCNTs. The transport of Na+ was notably found to be favored in comparison to that of Li+ and Cs+ or K+ . These results highlight the influence of steric and surface effects induced by the nano-confinement on the transport of ions through sub-2 nm SWCNTs.

Domaines: Chimie théorique et/ou physique; Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

Khadija Yazda, Said Tahir, Thierry Michel, Francois Henn, Vincent Jourdain. Evidence of selective cation transport through sub-2 nm single-walled carbon nanotubes. MRS Advances, 2016, 1 (28), pp.2079-2084. ⟨10.1557/adv.2016.323⟩. ⟨hal-01928862⟩