Synthetic water channels were developed with an aim to replace aquaporins for possible uses in water purification, while concurrently retaining aquaporins’ ability to conduct highly selective superfast water transport. Among the currently available synthetic water channel systems, none possesses water transport properties that parallel those of aquaporins. In this report, we present the first synthetic water channel system with intriguing aquaproin-like features. Employing a “sticky end”-mediated molecular strategy for constructing abiotic water channels, we demonstrate that a 20% enlargement in angstrom-scale pore volume could effect a remarkable enhancement in macroscopic water transport profile by 15 folds. This gives rise to a powerful synthetic water channel able to transport water at a speed of ∼3 × 109 H2O s–1 channel–1 with a high rejection of NaCl and KCl. This high water permeability, which is about 50% of aquaporin Z’s capacity, makes channel 1 the fastest among the existing synthetic water channels with high selectivity.

We describe here a modularly tunable molecular strategy for construction and combinatorial optimization of highly efficient K-selective channels. In our strategy, a highly robust supramolecular H-bonded 1D ensemble was used to order the appended crown ethers in such a way that they roughly stack on top of each other to form a channel for facilitated ion transport across the membrane. Among 15 channels that all prefer K over Na ions, channel molecule 5F8 shows the most pronounced optimum for K while disfavoring all other biologically important cations (e.g., Na, Ca and Mg). With a K/Na selectivity of 9.8 and an EC value of 6.2 μM for K ion, 5F8 is clearly among the best synthetic potassium channels developed over the past decades.

Modularly tunable monopeptidic scaffold enables rapid and combinatorial evolution of a halogen bond-mediated highly active chloride channel, exhibiting an excellent anticancer activity toward human breast cancer.

We report here a unique ion-fishing mechanism as an alternative to conventional carrier or channel mechanisms for mediating highly efficient and exceptionally selective transmembrane K+ flux. The molecular framework, underlying the fishing mechanism and comprising a fishing rod, a fishing line and a fishing bait/hook, is simple yet modularly modifiable. This feature enables rapid construction of a series of molecular ion fishers with distinctively different ion transport patterns. While more efficient ion transports are generally achieved by using 18-crown-6 as the fishing bait/hook, ion transport selectivity (K+/Na+) critically depends on the length of the fishing line, with the most selective MF6-C14 exhibiting exceptionally high selectivity (K+/Na+ = 18) and high activity (EC 50 = 1.1 mol % relative to lipid).

Synthetic strategies that enable rapid construction of covalent organic nanotubes with an angstrom‐scale tubular pore remain scarcely reported. Reported here is a remarkably simple and mild one‐pot polymerization protocol, employing POCl3 as the polymerization agent. This protocol efficiently generates polypyridine amide foldamer‐based covalent organic nanotubes with a 2.8 nm length at a yield of 50 %. Trapping single‐file water chains in the 2.8 Å tubular cavity, rich in hydrogen‐bond donors and acceptors, these tubular polypyridine ensembles rapidly and selectively transport water at a rate of 1.6×109 H2O⋅S−1⋅channel−1 and protons at a speed as fast as gramicidin A, with a high rejection of ions.