Capillary imbibition of confined water in nanopores

Abstract

The spontaneous capillary imbibition of confined nanopores is investigated using an analytical model that includes the slip effect, wettability and effective viscosity at the water surface interface. The results show that the effective viscosity of confined water is larger than that of bulk water and decreases with diameter and wettability. The effective slip length is negative for a contact angle of 0◦, and the effective slip length is positive and increases with diameter. The results of the presented model show that the capillary imbibition length for nanoconfined water can vary up to 0.389-1.033 times that determined by the LucasWashburn equation with no-slip boundary conditions for nanopores due to the effective viscosity and slippage with various dimensions and contact angles. The enhancement increases with diameter and contact angle. These results elucidate the confined movement through nanopores, which can be used to understand fracturing-fluid flow in the nanopores of shale reservoir formations.