Anomalous water transport in narrow-diameter carbon nanotubes.

Zhengyi Wan, Yurui Gao, Xiangyu Chen, Xiao Cheng Zeng, Joseph S Francisco, Chongqin Zhu

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2022 Sep 19

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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) mimicking the structure of aquaporins support fast water transport, making them strong candidates for building next-generation high-performance membranes for water treatment. The diffusion and transport behavior of water through CNTs or nanoporous graphene can be fundamentally different from those of bulk water through a macroscopic tube. To date, the nanotube-length-dependent physical transport behavior of water is still largely unexplored. Herein, on the basis of molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the flow rate of water through 0.83-nm-diameter (6,6) and 0.96-nm-diameter (7,7) CNTs exhibits anomalous transport behavior, whereby the flow rate increases markedly first and then either slowly decreases or changes slightly as the CNT length l increases. The critical range of l for the flow-rate transition is 0.37 to 0.5 nm. This anomalous water transport behavior is attributed to the l-dependent mechanical stability of the transient hydrogen-bonding chain that connects water molecules inside and outside the CNTs and bypasses the CNT orifice. The results unveil a microscopic mechanism governing water transport through subnanometer tubes, which has important implications for nanofluidic manipulation.

Citation

Zhengyi Wan, Yurui Gao, Xiangyu Chen, Xiao Cheng Zeng, Joseph S Francisco, Chongqin Zhu. Anomalous water transport in narrow-diameter carbon nanotubes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2022 Sep 19;119(39):e2211348119