You want water to slip? Supercool it!

Cecilia (PhD student), Samy and Laurent, with a colleague from Zurich, just had their work on nanofluidic slip of supercooled water published in Nanoscale.

Nanoconfined liquids offer innovative solutions for water purification and renewable energy harvesting, associated with novel flow properties emerging at the nanoscale. In particular, liquids can slip on some low-friction surfaces, boosting the performance of nanofluidic systems. Using atomistic simulations, the authors reveal and explain an unexpected increase of slip when water is "supercooled", namely when it is cooled down below its freezing point without becoming a solid. While providing fundamental insights on the molecular mechanisms of slip, this study is relevant to the design of anti-icing surfaces, could help in explaining the subtle dynamical behaviors of supercooled confined water, and paves the way to exploring new phenomena in supercooled nanofluidic systems.