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IMAGE: (left) Schematic of the PE-brush-grafted nanochannel system. (right) Flow reversal with applied electric field strength. view more
Credit: T. H. Pial et al., ACS Nano, 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c09248
Nanochannels have important applications in biomedicine, sensing, and many other fields. Though engineers working in the field of nanotechnology have been fabricating these tiny, tube-like structures for years, much remains unknown about their properties and behavior.
Now, University of Maryland mechanical engineering associate professor Siddhartha Das and a group of his Ph.D. students have published surprising new findings in the journal
ACS Nano. Using atomic-level simulations, Das and his team were able to demonstrate that charge properties as well as charge-induced fluid flow within a functionalized nanochannel does not always behave as expected.