SUMMARY

Solid-liquid friction and thermal transport at the nanoscale are strongly dependent on surface properties, such as chemistry (wettability) and roughness (granular and energetic). Although the classical momentum transport equations accurately describe the behavior for most conditions, at length scales of ~1 nm, deviations from the classical no-slip boundary condition have been observed. Experimental, numerical, and theoretical evidence suggests that there is a strong relationship between the thermal boundary conductance and the contact angle at the solid-liquid interface. While friction and thermal transport appear to be strongly related to wettability, the complexity of both phenomena brings into question some uncertainty about the accuracy and efficacy of some of the recently formulated theories. The newly discovered wetting transparency of graphene coated-surfaces presents an interesting opportunity to examine these theories by comparing two surfaces with similar wettability, but different short-range order of the interfacial liquid molecules. Molecular dynamics simulations and sophisticated theoretical analyses will be used to investigate the interfacial phenomena between water and graphene-coated solids, where wettability transparency is physically achievable. The objective of this investigation is to better understand the solid-liquid interfacial phenomena in order to promote the development of passivated surfaces (graphene-coated surfaces) for use in the protection from corrosion in heat transfer applications, nanofluidics systems, and the lubrication of nanomachines.