Capillary filling with giant liquid/solid slip: dynamics of water uptake by carbon nanotubes

Laurent Joly (1)

1 LPMCN - Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée et Nanostructures

This article discusses the way the standard description of capillary filling dynamics has to be modified to account for liquid/solid slip in nanometric pores. It focuses in particular on the case of a large slip length compared to the pore size. It is shown that the relevant parameter controlling the flow is neither the viscosity nor the slip length, but the friction coefficient of the liquid at the wall. Moreover in the Washburn regime, the filling velocity does not depend on the tube radius. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations suggest that this standard description fails to describe the early stage of capillary filling of carbon nanotubes by water, since viscous dissipation at the tube entrance must be taken into account.

Mots clés: capillary flows; carbon nanotubes; wall slip; molecular dynamics

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]; Modélisation et simulation; Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]

Laurent Joly. Capillary filling with giant liquid/solid slip: dynamics of water uptake by carbon nanotubes. 2011. ⟨hal-00609259v1⟩