Nanotube water channelling claims challenged
Results from 2017 paper raise questions over the flow rates of water through nanotubes
Last year, a team of researchers claimed that carbon nanotube filters they had developed could transport water faster than biological membrane channels. But these findings are now being disputed by biophysicists, who say faster water transport in the nanotubes is not possible without violating fundamental thermodynamic laws.
In 2017 we reported on research from Aleksandr Noy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US, and colleagues, who developed artificial water channels made from short lengths of narrow carbon nanotubes inserted into a lipid bilayer.1 The team reported that water could be transported through the nanotubes six times faster than through aquaporins, water-selective protein channels that ferry water across living cell membranes.
But scientists at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, are now challenging this claim.