Self-driven flow and chaos at liquid-gas nanofluidic interface

Abstract

We report a novel flow dynamics at the interface of liquid and gas through nanofluidic pores without applying any external driving force. Rayleigh-Taylor instability of water and air in sub-100 nanometer fluidic pores in a micrometre square domain of water and air are studied. We analyse it in the context of parameters, such as applied pressure, position to pore size ratio of the nanofluidic pore, gravity, and density. Our research also verifies the flow velocity equation with the simulation results and discuss the mass transfer efficiency of such flow structures. This is the first report on a self-driven switching mechanism of nanofluidic flow from ON to OFF or vice versa. A highly nonlinear complex nature of fluid dynamics is observed in nanometric length-scale, which is also one of the first studies in room temperature. Self-driven nanofluidics will have a large positive impact on biosensors, healthcare, net-zero sustainable energy production, and fundamental physic of fluid dynamics