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Water transport inside carbon nanotubes mediated by phonon-induced oscillating friction

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 692–695 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

The emergence of the field of nanofluidics in the last decade1 has led to the development of important applications including water desalination2, ultrafiltration2 and osmotic energy conversion3. Most applications make use of carbon nanotubes4, boron nitride nanotubes2, graphene5,6 and graphene oxide5. In particular, understanding water transport in carbon nanotubes is key for designing ultrafiltration devices2 and energy-efficient water filters1,4. However, although theoretical studies based on molecular dynamics simulations7,8,9 have revealed many mechanistic features of water transport at the molecular level, further advances in this direction are limited by the fact that the lowest flow velocities accessible by simulations7,8,9 are orders of magnitude higher than those measured experimentally4,10,11,12,13. Here, we extend molecular dynamics studies of water transport through carbon nanotubes to flow velocities comparable with experimental ones using massive crowd-sourced computing power. We observe previously undetected oscillations in the friction force between water and carbon nanotubes and show that these oscillations result from the coupling between confined water molecules and the longitudinal phonon modes of the nanotube. This coupling can enhance the diffusion of confined water by more than 300%. Our results may serve as a theoretical framework for the design of new devices for more efficient water filtration and osmotic energy conversion devices.

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Figure 1: MD simulations showing the nonlinear, oscillatory relationship between the shear stress τ and flow velocity v.
Figure 2: Mechanism of the oscillation in the shear stress.
Figure 3: Enhanced diffusion mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the thousands of volunteers who have contributed to the Computing for Clean Water project for their enthusiastic support. The authors thank A. Michaelides and G. Aeppli for discussions. This research was undertaken with the assistance of resources from the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), which is supported by the Australian Government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ming Ma, Shuai Wu & Quanshui Zheng

  2. London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, London, WC1H 0AJ, UK

    Ming Ma & François Grey

  3. School of Chemistry, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Ming Ma & Michael Urbakh

  4. Center for Nano and Micro Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    François Grey, Shuai Wu & Quanshui Zheng

  5. Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    François Grey

  6. Citizen Cyberscience Centre, CUI, University of Geneva, Carouge, CH-1227, Switzerland

    François Grey

  7. School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, New South Wales, Australia

    Luming Shen

  8. XIN Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Michael Urbakh & Quanshui Zheng

  9. XIN Center, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Michael Urbakh & Quanshui Zheng

  10. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, 3800, Victoria, Australia

    Jefferson Zhe Liu

  11. State Key Laboratory for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China

    Yilun Liu

  12. Applied Mechanics Lab, and State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Quanshui Zheng

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  1. Ming Ma
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Contributions

F.G., M.M. and Q.S.Z. proposed and designed the project. M.M. performed MD simulations, data analysis and theoretical analysis. F.G. coordinated the project and participated in data analysis. L.M.S. participated in the design of the MD simulations set-up and provided key resources for test simulations and data analysis. M.U. performed theoretical analysis and participated in data analysis. M.M., F.G., M.U. and Q.S.Z. wrote the manuscript. L.M.S., S.W., J.Z.L. and Y.L.L. participated in data analysis and manuscript preparation.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to François Grey or Quanshui Zheng.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Ma, M., Grey, F., Shen, L. et al. Water transport inside carbon nanotubes mediated by phonon-induced oscillating friction. Nature Nanotech 10, 692–695 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.134

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