Friction of water slipping in carbon nanotubes

Liquid slip is essential in nanofluidic systems, as shrinking channel size leads to a dramatic increase in flow resistance and thus high-energy consumption for driving nonslip flow. Using large-scale nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation of water flowing in carbon nanotubes (CNT's), we show that the relationship between the CNT wall-water interfacial friction stress and slip velocity follows a transition-state-theory-based inverse hyperbolic sine function, which remains universally valid regardless of wetting properties, CNT chiralities, and CNT sizes, and holds for all slip velocities from 0 to 1400 m/s. The finding could benefit the research in desalination and other chemical purification techniques.