Electrokinetic energy conversion efficiency in ion-selective nanopores

Taking hydrodynamic slippage into account, we derived an exact expression for the figure of merit to evaluate the electrokinetic energy conversion efficiency and power of an ion-selective nanopore. In the absence of slip, and when the ratio of the radius and the Gouy-Chapmann length (a/lambda(GC)) is approximately 10, the highest efficiency for an electrolyte consisting of simple monovalent ions was predicted to be approximately 9.7%. While this efficiency is low, it can be greatly improved to a potentially practical efficiency (>40%) when the slip ratio (b/a) is greater than 0.7. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3625921]