%0 Journal Article
%T Highly Selective Lithium Transport through Crown Ether Pillared Angstrom Channels.
%A Ye T
%A Gao H
%A Li Q
%A Liu N
%A Liu X
%A Jiang L
%A Gao J
%J Angew Chem Int Ed Engl
%V 63
%N 7
%D 2024 Feb 12
%M 38165062
%F 16.823
%R 10.1002/anie.202316161
%X Biological ion channels use the synergistic effects of various strategies to realize highly selective ion sieving. For example, potassium channels use functional groups and angstrom-sized pores to discriminate rival ions and enrich target ions. Inspired by this, we constructed a layered crystal pillared by crown ether that incorporates these strategies to realize high Li+ selectivity. The pillared channels and crown ether have an angstrom-scale size. The crown ether specifically allows the low-barrier transport of Li+ . The channels attract and enrich Li+ ions by up to orders of magnitude. As a result, our material sieves Li+ out of various common ions such as Na+ , K+ , Ca2+ , Mg2+ and Al3+ . Moreover, by spontaneously enriching Li+ ions, it realizes an effective Li+ /Na+ selectivity of 1422 in artificial seawater where the Li+ concentration is merely 25 μM. We expect this work to spark technologies for the extraction of lithium and other dilute metal ions.