Quantitative relationship between fluid inhomogeneities and flow enhancement in nanotubes

Abstract

Flow enhancement in nanotubes is of great potential to achieve ultra-fast fluidic transport. However, the mechanism of such a fast transport and the reduction as the tube enlarges to bulk scale is still unclear. In this study, we establish a model to quantitatively correlate the flow enhancement and the fluid inhomogeneity to describe the enhanced transport and its evolution with the tube dimension. We found the fluid inhomogeneity at the solid–liquid interface in nanotubes and its independence with tube size by dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation. Based on that, we establish novel theoretical models for the penetration rate in nanotubes for the first time with parameters related to the fluid inhomogeneity which can achieve quantitative prediction of nanoflow enhancement and are valid through all scales.