Spontaneous Dipole Reorientation in Confined Water and Its Effect on Wetting/Dewetting of Hydrophobic Nanopores.

ABSTRACT: The properties of nanoconfined fluids are important for a broad range of natural and engineering systems. In particular, wetting/dewetting of hydrophobic nanoporous materials is crucial due to their broad applicability for molecular separation and liquid purification; energy storage, conversion, recuperation, and dissipation; for catalysis, chromatography, and so on. In this work, a rapid, orchestrated, and spontaneous dipole reorientation was observed in hydrophobic nanotubes of various pore sizes d (7.9-16.5 Å) via simulations. This phenomenon leads to the fragmentation of water clusters in the narrow nanopores (d = 7.9, 10 Å) and strongly affects dewetting through cluster repulsion. The cavitation in these pores has an electrostatic origin. The dependence of hydrogen-bonde

SUBMITTER: Bushuev YG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10875646 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature