Taming the thermodiffusion of alkali halide solutions in silica nanopores
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Supporting information
Published version
Author(s)
Di Lecce, Silvia
Albrecht, Tim
Bresme, Fernando
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Thermal fields give rise to thermal coupling phenomena, such as mass and charge fluxes, which are useful in energy recovery applications and nanofluidic devices for pumping, mixing or desalination. Here we use state of the art non-equilibrium molecular simulations to quantify the thermodiffusion of alkali halide solutions, LiCl and NaCl, confined in silica nanopores, targeting diameters of the order of those found in mesoporous silica nanostructures. We show that nanoconfinement modifies the thermodiffusion behaviour of the solution. Under confinement conditions, the solutions become more thermophilic, with a preference to accumulate at hot sources, or thermoneutral, with the thermodiffusion being inhibited. Our work highlights the importance of nanoconfinement in thermodiffusion and outlines strategies to tune mass transport at the nanoscale, using thermal fields.
Date Issued
2020-11-19
Date Acceptance
2020-11-13
Citation
Nanoscale, 2020, 12 (46), pp.23626-23635
ISSN
2040-3364
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry
Start Page
23626
End Page
23635
Journal / Book Title
Nanoscale
Volume
12
Issue
46
Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/).
Sponsor
The Leverhulme Trust
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33211052
Grant Number
RPG-2018-384
EP/J003859/1
Subjects
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
02 Physical Sciences
03 Chemical Sciences
10 Technology
Publication Status
Published online
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2020-11-13