Mass Transport in Nanochannels

Vinh      Nguyen Phan; Nam-Trung      Nguyen; Chun      Yang

doi:10.2174/1876402911002040286

Abstract

With the advancement in ultra precision technologies and micromachining processes, the fabrication of well defined nanochannels has become feasible. Nanochannels have applications in various fields such as biomedical analysis, fuel cell, and water technologies. Understanding of characteristics of fluid transport in nanoscale is currently under research, and new insights have been gained. However, there still are a number of phenomen that have not yet been described by a complete theory. Experimental investigations provide interesting results which are unique in the nanoscale and require extensive studies to be understood. This paper aims to provide a general view on the transport phenomena in nanochannels from the different aspects of theory, experiment, fabrication and simulation. The major results of this field in the recent years are also highlighted. This review contributes to the preliminary understanding of the emerging research fields of nanofluidics.

Keywords: Nanofluidics, nanochannels, capillarity, evaporation, electro viscous, photolithography, Reactive Ion Etching, RIE, Electric Double Layer, EDL, Monte-Carlo method, Lattice Boltzmann, Navier-Stokes, electroosmosis, Electric Double Layer EDL, Boltzmann's constant, Levine, Electroosmotic Flow, Petsev's formula, Electric Double Layer (EDL, nanoscale, Electrophoretic Flow, Fabry-Pérot interferometer, nanopar-ticle image velocimetry method, PB theory, Gouy-Chapman model, Debye layer, Fickian diffusion, SIMION, COMSOL