Speaker
Description
Nanofluidic membranes can be used to harvest energy from salinity gradients, and bullet-shaped nanochannels offer promising characteristics, as their asymmetric geometry enhances power output relative to other nanochannel shapes [1]. For practical applications, however, energy conversion must be scaled from individual nanochannels to membranes containing large number of pores. In this transition, pore density and pore-to-pore interactions can strongly influence the response and overall energy conversion performance [2,3].
In this work, we investigate salinity-gradient energy conversion in track-etched, bullet-shaped nanochannels in polyethylene terephthalate (PET), with particular emphasis on the low-fluence regime, and focusing on the relationship between single-pore and multiporous membrane behavior. Single nanochannels are first characterized under different salinity gradients and pH to identify favorable operating conditions. Membranes with systematically varied pore densities are then investigated to assess how energy conversion performance scales with pore density.
Our results provide insight into the transition from single-pore to multiporous membrane behavior in osmotic energy harvesting and help identify key parameters for the development of scalable nanofluidic membranes for this application.
References
[1] G. Laucirica et al., Shape matters: Enhanced osmotic energy harvesting in bullet-shaped nanochannels, Nano Energy 71, 104612 (2020).
[2] J. Su et al., Anomalous Pore-Density Dependence in Nanofluidic Osmotic Power Generation, Chin. J. Chem. 36, 417–420 (2018).
[3] Z. S. Siwy, M. L. Bruening and S. Howorka, Nanopores: synergy from DNA sequencing to industrial filtration – small holes with big impact, Chem. Soc. Rev. 52, 1983–1994 (2023).