title: Gated proton transport in aligned mesoporous silica films.
abstract: Modulated proton transport plays significant roles in biological processes such as ATP synthesis as well as in technologically important applications including, for example, hydrogen fuel cells. The state-of-the-art proton-exchange membrane is the sulphonated tetrafluoroethylene copolymer Nafion developed by DuPont in the late 1960s, with a high proton conductivity. However, actively switchable proton conduction, a functional mimic of the ion transport within a cell membrane, has yet to be realized. Herein, we report the electrostatic gating of proton transport within aligned mesoporous silica thin film. It is observed that surface-charge-mediated transport is dominant at low proton concentrations. We have further demonstrated that the proton conduction can be actively modulated by two-fourfold with a gate voltage as low as 1 V. Such artificial gatable ion transport media could have potential applications in nanofluidic chemical processors, biomolecular separation and electrochemical energy conversion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Seong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huh
authors.forename: Ruoxue
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Arnold
authors.forename: Peidong
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D004563:Electrochemistry; D009038:Motion; D016062:Porosity; D011522:Protons; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D055672:Static Electricity
chemical_list: D011522:Protons; D012822:Silicon Dioxide