Fluorofoldamer-Based Salt- and Proton-Rejecting Artificial Water Channels for Ultrafast Water Transport

Abstract

Here, we report on a novel class of fluorofoldamer-based artificial water channels (AWCs) that combines excellent water over ion selectivity with extraordinarily high water transport efficiency and structural simplicity and robustness. These AWCs were produced by a facile one-pot copolymerization reaction under mild conditions. Among these channels, the best-performing channel (AWC 1) is a n-C8H17-decorated foldamer nanotube with an average channel length of 2.8 nm and a pore diameter of 5.2 Å. AWC 1 demonstrates an ultrafast water conduction rate of 1.4 × 1010 H2O/s per channel, outperforming the archetypal biological water channel, aquaporin 1, by 27%, while excluding salts (i.e., NaCl and KCl) and protons. Unique to this class of channels, the inwardly facing C(sp2)-F moieties are proposed as being critical to enabling the ultrafast and superselective water transport properties observed.