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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Earth’s most abundant organic material provides an ion highway

Scientists manipulate cellulose, which is found in wood fibre, to produce an ion-transporting ‘supramolecule’.
A schematic showing the massively aligned 1D channels containing Na+ ions and the water molecules

Illustration of cellulose molecules (red and grey) form channels that carry water molecules (teal) and sodium ions (violet). Credit: Xin Zhang

Ions can be transported at high speeds through a molecular structure derived from cellulose — the main constituent of plant cell walls, and the most abundant organic material on Earth1.

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Nature 612, 593 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04391-z

References

  1. Dong, Q. et al. Sci. Adv. 8, eadd2031 (2022).

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