The entropic origin of the enhancement of liquid diffusion close to a neutral confining surface

Lorenzo Agosta*, Wim Briels, Kersti Hermansson, Mikhail Dzugutov

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract



It is known that, in the proximity of a neutral wall, liquids experience diffusion enhancement relative to their bulk diffusion, but the origin of this phenomenon is still unknown. We report a molecular dynamics simulation investigating the dynamics of a simple liquid in the proximity to a non-interacting smooth confining wall, which exhibits a strong diffusion enhancement within the liquid layers adjacent to the wall. We present an analysis of these results, demonstrating that the observed diffusion enhancement can be accounted for, with numerical accuracy, using the universal scaling law that relates the liquid diffusion rate to the excess entropy. These results show that the scaling law, which has so far only been used for the description of the bulk liquid diffusion, can be successfully used to describe the diffusion in liquids under nano-scale confinement.
Original languageEnglish
Article number091102
Number of pages7
JournalThe Journal of chemical physics
Volume161
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Sept 2024

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