Bidirectional Modulation on Electroporation Induced by Membrane Tension Under the Electric Field.

Electroporation ablation is a minimally invasive nonthermal ablation technology that is applied to tumor ablation therapy. Given the varied morphologies of tumor cells, when an electric field is applied to the cell membrane surface, the direction of the electric field produces various angles with normal to the tangential plane of the cell membrane. In this study, we investigated the impact of cell morphology on membrane electroporation characteristics by adjusting the angle of the electric field relative to the cell membrane by using molecular dynamics simulations.

Negative effect of nanoconfinement on water transport across nanotube membranes.

Nanoconfinement environments are commonly considered advantageous for ultrafast water flow across nanotube membranes. This study illustrates that nanoconfinement has a negative effect on water transport across nanotube membranes based on molecular dynamics simulations. Although water viscosity and the friction coefficient evidently decrease because of nanoconfinement, water molecular flux and flow velocity across carbon nanotubes decrease sharply with the pore size of nanotubes.

The fountain effect of ice-like water across nanotubes at room temperature.

The well-known fountain effect of superfluid helium can directly convert heat to mechanical work by the transport of the superfluid across narrow channels under a temperature difference. But it is regarded as a unique feature of superfluids, only occurring below the temperature of 2.17 K.

Fast Water Thermo-pumping Flow Across Nanotube Membranes for Desalination.

Development of high-efficiency and low-cost seawater desalination technologies is critical to meet global water crisis. Here we report a fast water pumping method in which the water molecules in seawater are continuously pumped across nanotube membranes driven by a small temperature difference, opening the possibility of high-throughput small-scale desalination devices driven by low-grade thermal energy. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that an equivalent driving pressure of 5.

Structure-dependent water transport across nanopores of carbon nanotubes: toward selective gating upon temperature regulation.

Determining water structure in nanopores and its influence on water transport behaviour is of great importance for understanding and regulating the transport across nanopores. Here we report an ultrafast-slow flow transition phenomenon for water transport across nanopores of carbon nanotubes owing to the change in water structure in nanopores induced by temperature. By performing extensive molecular dynamics simulations, we show the dependence of water transport behaviours on water structures.

Size effects of pore density and solute size on water osmosis through nanoporous membrane.

Understanding the behavior of osmotic transport across nanoporous membranes at molecular level is critical to their design and applications, and it is also beneficial to the comprehension of the mechanism of biological transmembrane transport processes. Pore density is an important parameter for nanoporous membranes. To better understand the influence of pore density on osmotic transport, we have performed systematic molecular dynamics simulations on water osmosis across nanoporous membranes with different pore densities (i.