Fluidics at the nanoscales: fast and curious

par Lydéric Bocquet

mardi 3 nov. 2015, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Paris

Amphitheatre Charpak (LPNHE)

Fluid transport at the nanoscales is one of the remaining virgin territories in fluid dynamics, in spite of hydrodynamics being a very old and established domain. Over the last years, a number of striking phenomena have been unveiled, such as superfast flows in carbon nanotubes or graphene oxides membranes, and many of them are still awaiting an explanation. A major challenge to address the fundamental properties at the nanoscales lies in building distinct and well-controlled nanosystems, amenable to the systematic exploration of their properties. To this end, we have developed new methods based on the manipulation of nano-objects, displacing, cutting, and gluing these elementary building blocks. This allows us to fabricate original fluidic and mechanical systems involving single nanotubes.

 

I will first discuss fluidic transport inside single nanotubes, made of both carbon and boron-nitride materials. Putting osmotic transport and its fundamental origins into perspective, I will show how to harvest this powerful mechanism beyond the classical van’t Hoff law. Experiments of osmotic transport across boron-nitride nanotubes show unprecedented electric energy conversion from salt concentration gradients, thereby unveiling new perspectives in the field of osmotic energy harvesting from salinity gradients. 

I will then show that nanoscale confinement allows building more advanced fluid transport functionalities, such as ionic or osmotic diodes. This opens new avenues in membrane science for energy harvesting and desalination questions.