The impact of membrane surface charges on the ion transport in MoS2 nanopore power generators

Recent experiments demonstrated giant osmotic effects induced in a single-atomic-layer MoS2 nanopore by imposing a KCl concentration bias, thereby highlighting the prospect of ultrathin nanopores as power generators. In this work, we report on an electrokinetic analysis of the ionic transport in the MoS2 nanopore system. By taking membrane surface chemistry into account, we found profound roles of surface charges in and out of the nanopore on the cross-pore ion transport, which shed light on the intriguing experimental observations of a high pore conductance with a large open-circuit voltage in the MoS2 system. The present work establishes a theoretical model capable of dealing with ultrathin membrane surface charges for evaluating the energy conversion performance of nanopore power generators constructed with two-dimensional materials. Published by AIP Publishing.