Probing structural superlubricity of two-dimensional water transport with atomic resolution

Water transport can drastically change under different conditions and can even achieve superlubricity, meaning that friction virtually vanishes. The microscopic origin of this counterintuitive property is unclear. Using a cryogenic atomic force microscopy technique, Wu et al. directly imaged bilayer hexagonal two-dimensional water islands on homopolar graphene and heteropolar hexagonal boron nitride monolayers and measured their friction forces as a function of island area. The experimental data confirmed a frictionless limit for water islands transport on graphene and, together with molecular dynamics simulations, demonstrated that this property originates from a delicate interplay between the water-water and water-surface interactions. —Yury Suleymanov Water transport in low-dimensional materials for nanofluidic devices has recently attracted tremendous attention ( 1– 14). The key interest lies in that the water flow rate could be drastically enhanced when the dimension of the confinement geometry approaches the atomic scale (<1 nm), leading to almost vanishing friction (superlubricity) ( 1– 6). This counterintuitive property has potentially broad applications in desalination ( 15– 17), nanofiltration ( 6, 11, 18), and energy harvesting ( 19, 20). The frictionless water transport is best exemplified in the homopolar carbon-based nanomaterials, such as zero-dimensional (0D) nanopores ( 15, 16), 1D carbon nanotubes ( 1– 5, 11), and 2D channels ( 10, 12) made from graphene layers. It has been proposed that the superlubricity may arise from the curvature-induced structural incommensurability for the water in 1D carbon nanotubes ( 21). However, this idea cannot apply to the 2D graphene channels, where no curvature effect is present. So far, our understanding of the frictionless water transport under atomic confinement is still elusive.

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  • 成果名称:低表面能涂层

    合作方式:技术开发

    联 系 人:周老师

    联系电话:13321314106

    成果名称:低表面能涂层

    合作方式:技术开发

    联 系 人:周老师

    联系电话:13321314106

    成果名称:低表面能涂层

    合作方式:技术开发

    联 系 人:周老师

    联系电话:13321314106

    成果名称:低表面能涂层

    合作方式:技术开发

    联 系 人:周老师

    联系电话:13321314106

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