Hydrocarbon contamination in angström-scale channels

Nonspecific molecular adsorption like airborne contamination occurs on most surfaces including those of 2D materials and alters their properties. While the surface contamination is studied using a plethora of techniques, the effect of contamination on a confined system such as nanochannels, nanopores leading to their clogging is still lacking. We report a systematic investigation of hydrocarbon adsorption in the angstrom slit channels of varied heights. Hexane is chosen to mimic the hydrocarbon contamination and the clogging of the angstrom-channels is evaluated via a Helium gas flow measurement. The level of the hexane adsorption, in other words, the degree of clogging depends on the size difference between the channels and hexane. A dynamic transition of the clogging and revival process is shown in sub-2 nm thin channels. Long-term storage and stability of our angstrom-channels is demonstrated here up to three years, alleviating the contamination and unclogging the channels using thermal treatment. This study highlights the importance of the nanochannels stability and demonstrates self-cleansing nature of sub-2 nm thin channels enabling a robust platform for molecular transport and separation studies. We provide a method to assess the cleanliness of the nanoporous membranes, which is vital for the practical applications of nanofluidics in various fields such as molecular sensing, separation and power generation.