How to Use ion in a Sentence

ion

noun
  • These ions move in and out of the cell via pores known as ion channels.
    — Jenny Wilkerson, chicagotribune.com, 12 Sep. 2019
  • And then ions can flow from the outside of the cell to the inside.
    — Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 5 Sep. 2019
  • This is the first time the effect has been used for ion transport.
    — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 23 Mar. 2026
  • Its qubits can be fashioned of many things, such as ions, photons, and atoms.
    — Byadrian Cho, science.org, 22 Feb. 2023
  • But sodium ions are large and can clog the cathode, wearing it out.
    — Ameya Paleja, Interesting Engineering, 3 Mar. 2026
  • That’s a chelator that binds to free metal ions found in tap water.
    — Annie Blay-Tettey, Allure, 15 Dec. 2025
  • This can be likened to extra parking spaces where ions can hop through.
    — Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 30 Aug. 2025
  • Jamming a lot of them into the same small space gets harder the more ions there are.
    — Philip Ball, Quanta Magazine, 25 Mar. 2024
  • In a standard battery, ions flow through a liquid.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 18 Dec. 2025
  • For the past three decades, lithium-ion batteries have been king.
    — Pranshu Verma, Washington Post, 18 May 2022
  • When the battery was turned on, the ions and electrons flowed back to the cathode.
    — Ben Guarino, Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2019
  • These openings are just for lithium ions to pass, but block sulfur chains.
    — Sujita Sinha, Interesting Engineering, 2 Oct. 2025
  • The cyanide ion binds to this enzyme, and blocks it from doing its life-giving job.
    — Meg Neal, Popular Mechanics, 4 Oct. 2020
  • The researchers say that it could be done on a lab benchtop using just a few atoms or ions.
    — Quanta Magazine, 27 Feb. 2020
  • The ions, meanwhile, didn’t care about the high-frequency field at all.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 11 Apr. 2026
  • There’s a growing body of thought that this may have to do with the negative ions in the air.
    — Michael Smolens, sandiegouniontribune.com, 11 Apr. 2018
  • Lithium ions crossed into the pure water.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 12 Dec. 2025
  • As these dimers break and reform, the oxygen ions can move easily.
    — Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 12 Aug. 2025
  • When a battery is fully charged, the anode has sucked up lithium ions like a sponge.
    — Christopher Mims, WSJ, 18 Mar. 2018
  • The plume of ions jetting out from the spacecraft therefore acts to provide thrust.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 25 Jan. 2025
  • The threat has always been there because gambling ion sports has always been there.
    — Greg Cote, miamiherald, 14 May 2018
  • When the voltage was reversed or removed, the ions left the fiber surface.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 14 Feb. 2026
  • The change in the ocean's pH makes carbonate ions less abundant.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN, 25 Sep. 2019
  • The solid would bear the loads and the liquid would help ions move between the electrodes.
    — Daniel Oberhaus, Popular Mechanics, 8 May 2023
  • Lithium-ion batteries in the electric cars on board have caught fire.
    — Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics, 18 Feb. 2022
  • The hard water gets filtered through resin in the softener, which then adds in salt ions.
    — Brittany Vanderbill, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 July 2023
  • Meanwhile, the electric field also propels a flow of ions across the nanopore.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 2 Oct. 2025
  • The drug interrupts this process by binding to the manganese ions.
    — Bradley J. Fikes, sandiegouniontribune.com, 20 Mar. 2018
  • The method cannot separate lithium from ions with the same charge, such as sodium.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 12 Dec. 2025
  • These particles, ions and electrons, get heated up and shoot out at great speed.
    — Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, 5 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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