Liquid flow in surface-nanostructured channels studied by molecular dynamics simulation

Molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to investigate the fluid wetting and flow in nanochannels whose surfaces are structured by an array of nanoscale triangular modules. We find that the surface nanostructures have a dual effect on the boundary slip and friction of the liquid nanoflow. On the one hand, the nanostructures can enhance the surface hydrophilicity for a hydrophilic liquid-solid interaction, and can increase the hydrophobicity for a hydrophobic interaction due to a nanoscale lotus effect. In particular, the nanostructured surface may show superhydrophobicity and lead to the large velocity slip of the liquid flow. On the other hand, simultaneously, the nanostructures distort the nanoscale streamlines of the liquid flow near the channel surfaces and block the nanoflow directly, which decreases the apparent slip length equivalently. The dual effect of the nanostructures on the surface wettability and the hydrodynamic disturbance results in a nonmonotonic dependence of the slip length on the nanostructure size. The simulations imply that the surface nanostructures can be applied to control the friction of liquid micro- and nanoflows.