Recently, a new progress on Water Flow in Nanochannels was made by Yaojun's Group of School of Petroleum Engineering. The paper "Electromanipulating Water Flow in Nanochannels" has got published by Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

In the article, the group came up with the new idea that a vibrational charge outside the nanochannel can promote water flux, which is in sharp contrast to the prevailing view that a stationary charge outside a nanochannel impedes water permeation across the nanochannel  and aslo had it proved through moleculardynamics simulations. In the vibrational charge system, adecrease in the distance between the charge and the nanochannel leads to an increase in the water net flux, which is contrary to that of the fixed-charge system. The increase in net water flux is the result of the vibrational charge-induced disruption of hydrogen bonds when the net water flux is strongly affected by the vibrational frequency of the charge. In particular, the net flux reaches a maximum when the vibrational frequency matches the inherent frequency of hydrogen bond inside the nanochannel. This electromanipulating transport phenomenon provides an important new mechanism of water transport confined in nanochannels. 

In recent years, Yaojun's group has been focosing on the field of  oil and gas flow and obtained many  important findings. Their articles have been published by influential international journals, such as  Angew. Chem. Int. Edit., Nano Lett., Int. J. Heat. Mass Transfer, Int. J. Greenh. Gas Con., J. Comput. Phys.

See more information about the paper:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201408633/abstract

　　Editor: Bu Lingduo

　　Source: UPC News Center