Simulations of nanoscale flow: water, proton, and biopolymer transport through carbon nanotube membranes

摘要

The transport of water, protons, and nucleic acids through carbon nanotubes was studied with all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. Water is found to fill even narrow pores of sub-nanometer diameter, but the filling is sensitive to the strength of attractive pore-water interactions. Motions of the resulting water wires is fast on a molecular scale. Protons were also found to move rapidly along one-dimensionally ordered water chains with a hopping mechanism. The transport of nucleic acids through nanotube membranes is dominated by polymer conformational dynamics during entry, and hydrophobic attachment to the pore walls during exit.