Title Stabilization of Membrane Pores by Packing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model demonstrating how packing interactions in membranes without surface tension can stabilize pores, leading to a dynamic, sieve-like porous structure at high temperatures.

Contribution

It presents a novel theoretical model showing pore stabilization through excluded volume interactions in multipore membranes, with predictions of pore size distribution and membrane behavior.

Findings

Excluded volume interactions stabilize pores in membranes.

Pore size distribution and lifetime are calculable within the model.

Membranes exhibit a sieve-like structure at high temperatures.

Abstract

We present a model for pore stabilization in membranes without surface tension. Whereas an isolated pore is always unstable (since it either shrinks tending to re-seal or grows without bound til to membrane disintegration), it is shown that excluded volume interactions in a system of many pores can stabilize individual pores of a given size in a certain range of model parameters. For such a multipore membrane system, the distribution of pore size and associated pore lifetime are calculated within the mean field approximation. We predict that, above certain temperature when the effective line tension becomes negative, the membrane exhibits a dynamic sieve-like porous structure.