Polarity-Dependent Electrochemically Controlled Transport of Water through Carbon Nanotube Membranes
- 13 February 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Chemical Society (ACS) in Nano Letters
- Vol. 7 (3), 697-702
- https://doi.org/10.1021/nl062853g
Abstract
We demonstrate here that water can be efficiently wet and pumped through superhydrophobic aligned multiwalled nanotube membranes by application of a small positive dc bias. At a critical bias (∼1.7 V), with the membrane acting as anode, there is an abrupt transition from a superhydrophobic to hydrophilic state. Interestingly, this phenomenon is strongly polarity dependent; for a negative bias applied to the membrane, 2 orders of magnitude higher bias is required for the transition. The polarity and voltage-dependent wetting that we report could be used to controllably wick fluids through nanotube membranes and could find various applications.Keywords
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