paper

Towards a unified mechanistic understanding of the electrical response of bipolar nanofluidic systems

arXiv:2510.14080 · doi:10.1016/j.memsci.2026.125628

Abstract

Bipolar nanoporous membranes and bipolar nanochannels are used in water desalination and energy-harvesting systems that provide clean water and green energy, respectively. The growing need for both requires continuous improvement of their performance. However, the underlying physics of these complex systems is still not fully understood, making empirical optimization slow and inefficient. In this work, we combine theoretical analysis and numerical simulations to develop a unified framework for improving the design of nanofluidic devices. We show that the system response is governed by the interplay between the applied voltage and a parameter , which depends on the ratio of geometry and surface charge densities of both charged regions. At low voltages, the response is mostly determined by , allowing its dependence to be represented by a simplified phase space. At high voltages, this phase space becomes oversimplified. To demonstrate the framework's robustness, we scan a range of configurations, from unipolar channels (single charged region) to bipolar channels (positive and negative segments). We compare the numerically simulated current-voltage responses with three theoretical models, which are limiting scenarios within the phase space, and explain the observed deviations. These findings can help reduce the time and resources required to optimize nanofluidic devices and improve the interpretation of experiments and simulations.

31 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (10)