Giant and flux controllable pumping of water molecules in a double- walled carbon nanotube

CP Cheng and CL Luo and L Zhu and XF Zhu, MOLECULAR SIMULATION, 41, 512-520 (2015).

DOI: 10.1080/08927022.2014.976639

We designed a water pumping system based on double-walled carbon nanotube. In this system, the inner tube was fixed as the water channel, while the exterior was moved similarly to the piston motion along the axial direction to induce pumping force. Molecular dynamics simulations confirmed that the water flux is sensitive to the motion velocity of the outer tube so that giant and controllable unidirectional water flow can be achieved in this system by varying the velocity. The enhancement of the pumping ability mainly results from the carbon-water van der Waals driving forces of the exterior tube and the osmosis pressure of the water reservoir. This design may open a new way for water pumping in the field of nanodevices.

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