2009 Articles

Experimental Study on Energy Dissipation of Electrolytes in Nanopores

Zhao, Jianbing; Culligan, Patricia J.; Germaine, John T.; Chen, Xi

When a nonwetting fluid is forced to infiltrate a hydrophobic nanoporous solid, the external mechanical work is partially dissipated into thermal energy and partially converted to the liquid-solid interface energy to increase its enthalpy, resulting in a system with a superior energy absorption performance. To clarify the energy dissipation and conversion mechanisms, experimental infiltration and defiltration tests of liquid/ion solutions into nanopores of a hydrophobic ZSM-5 zeolite were conducted. The characteristics of energy dissipation were quantified by measuring the temperature variation of the immersed liquid environment and compared against that estimated from pressure-infiltration volume isotherms during infiltration and defiltration stages of the test. Both stages were observed to be endothermic, with the temperature of the liquid phase showing a steady increase with changes in liquid saturation. The confinement of the molecular-sized pore space causes the liquid molecules/ions to transit between statuses of orderly and disorderly motions, resulting in dissipation behaviors that vary with liquid infiltration/defiltration rates and the types and concentrations of additive electrolytes in the liquid—both factors of which alter the characteristics of the nanofluidic transport behavior.