Phosphate-Responsive Biomimetic Nanofluidic Diodes Regulated by Polyamine-Phosphate Interactions: Insights into Their Functional Behavior from Theory and Experiment

PÉREZ-MITTA, GONZALO; MARMISOLLÉ, WALDEMAR A.; ALBESA, ALBERTO G.; TOIMIL-MOLARES, MARÍA EUGENIA; TRAUTMANN, CHRISTINA; AZZARONI, OMAR

SMALL

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

Año: 2017

1613-6810

There is currently high interest in developing nanofluidic devices whose iontronic output is defined by biological interactions. In this report, we show the fabrication of a phosphate responsive nanofluidic diode by using the biological relevant amine-phosphate interactions. The fabrication procedure includes the modification of a track-etched asymmetric (conical) nanochannel with polyallylamine (PAH) by electrostatic self-assembly. PAH is the arcaetypical model of polyamine and it was further used to adress the nanochannels with phosphate responsivity. In order to explore the influence that phosphate in solution has in the conductance of the modified nanocannels, current-voltage measuremts using different concentrations of phosphates were performed. Furthermore, to have a complete physicochemical understanding of the system, experimental data was analyed using a continuous model based on Poison-Nernst-Planck equations and compared with results obtain from stochastic Monte Carlo simulations.