Creating Sodium Ion Channels via De Novo Encapsulation of Ionophores for Enhanced Water Energy Harvesting

• DOI: 10.1002/adma.202420636
• Publication Date: 2025-04-01T03:45:27Z
• Authors: Qing Guo; Zhiwei Xing; Huaxi Guo; Zhuozhi Lai; Jiaming Yi; Di Wu; Zhifeng Dai; Li Zhang; Sai Wang; Shengqian Ma; Qi Sun

Abstract Biological ion channels achieve remarkable permselectivity and cation discrimination through the synergy of their intricate architectures specialized ionophores within confined nanospaces, enabling efficient energy conversion. Emulating such selectivity in synthetic nanochannels, however, remains a persistent challenge. To address this, novel host‐guest assembly membrane is developed by incorporating sodium‐selective into β‐ketoenamine‐linked covalent organic framework (COF). This design confers exceptional Na + selectivity, achieving /K /Li ratios 3.6 103, respectively, along with near‐perfect /Cl − under 0.5 M || 0.01 salinity gradient. Notably, dynamically switches its to favor anion transport presence high‐valent cations (e.g., Ca 2+ ), overcoming limitations as uphill diffusion back currents observed conventional cation‐selective membranes. adaptive behavior yields 4.6‐fold increase output power density ‐rich environments. These findings advance biomimetic nanochannels unparalleled enhanced conversion efficiency.