Sympsoium EL19: Atomically-Thin 2D Materials and Heterostructures—Synthesis, Properties and Applications
December 07, 2023
Raphaela de Oliveira, UFMG
Mechanical Nanomanipulation of Water Confined in a Naturally Occurring Water-Hybrid 2D System
Written by Mruganka Parasnis
Water transport in nanocavities in the Earth’s interior is an important topic which can be quantified to its elastic and viscosity behavior using nanotribology. Artificial nanocapillaries can be quantified to observe water transport and understand Van-Der Waal interactions. Minerals which occur naturally have hydrous cavities in the Earth. Phyllosilicate materials have wide-band insulators, which can be exfoliated to monolayers that can absorb water. Water confines in the layers due to the electrostatic charge. Nanomanipulation was performed on the interlamellar water in clinochlore by AFM in contact mode. FTIR and AFM combined were used to observe chlinochore that formed ice-like structures. Clinochore was functionalized to observe interactions due to changed surface charge. Pressure was increased from 1 µN pressure, 1.5 µN. These structures can be used for real life applications such as microfluidics and in the biomedical industry.