Hydrodynamic slip can align thin nanoplatelets in shear flow

Catherine Kamal, Simon Gravelle and Lorenzo Botto ()
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Catherine Kamal: Queen Mary University of London
Simon Gravelle: Queen Mary University of London
Lorenzo Botto: Queen Mary University of London

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The large-scale processing of nanomaterials such as graphene and MoS2 relies on understanding the flow behaviour of nanometrically-thin platelets suspended in liquids. Here we show, by combining non-equilibrium molecular dynamics and continuum simulations, that rigid nanoplatelets can attain a stable orientation for sufficiently strong flows. Such a stable orientation is in contradiction with the rotational motion predicted by classical colloidal hydrodynamics. This surprising effect is due to hydrodynamic slip at the liquid-solid interface and occurs when the slip length is larger than the platelet thickness; a slip length of a few nanometers may be sufficient to observe alignment. The predictions we developed by examining pure and surface-modified graphene is applicable to different solvent/2D material combinations. The emergence of a fixed orientation in a direction nearly parallel to the flow implies a slip-dependent change in several macroscopic transport properties, with potential impact on applications ranging from functional inks to nanocomposites.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15939-w

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