Capillary filling dynamics of water in nanopores

We portray a universal description of dynamic slip-stick behavior of water flowing through nanoscale pores. Based on fundamental molecular transport considerations, we derive a generalized constitutive model for describing resistive forces acting on the water column in a capillary that is being dynamically filled, as a combined function of the meniscus height, surface wettability, and roughness. This effectively acts like a unique signature of nanopore imbibition characteristics of water, which, when substituted in a simple one-dimensional force balance model agrees quantitatively with results from molecular dynamics simulations for a general class of problems, without necessitating the employment of any artificially tunable fitting parameters. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4758683]