Carbon dioxide screwing mechanism in porous crystal unravelled

Helical trajectory of one CO2 oxygen atom (red spheres) about the channel axis (blue bar)

Source: © Royal Society of Chemistry

Solid-state NMR used to probe dynamics of selective gas uptake

Scientists have designed a porous material that is selective for carbon dioxide over other gases and determined the motion of the gas as it diffuses through the crystal. They found that carbon dioxide travels like a screw through the material’s charged helical channels, at speeds that resemble molecules crossing transmembrane channels.