Carbon nanotubes turn on water flow
From Boston, at a meeting of the Materials Research Society
Tiny tubes are everywhere in biology, from blood capillaries to channels in cell membranes. Now scientists are finding that synthetic carbon nanotubes have a property that could make them useful for modeling some of the body’s narrowest channels.
Using computer simulations, Gerhard Hummer of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., and his colleagues have shown that water molecules will quickly enter and flow through a carbon nanotube just 8 nanometers in diameter. A separate set of simulations shows that certain organic molecules also will course through such nanotubes.