Viscoelasticity and shear thinning of nanoconfined water.

Understanding flow properties and phase behavior of water confined to nanometer-sized pores and slits is central to a wide range of problems in science, such as percolation in geology, lubrication of future nano-machines, self-assembly and interactions of biomolecules, and transport through porous media in filtration processes. Experiments with different techniques in the past have reported that viscosity of nanoconfined water increases, decreases, or remains close to bulk water. Here we show that water confined to less than 20-nm-thick films exhibits both viscoelasticity and shear thinning. Typically viscoelasticity and shear thinning appear due to shearing of complex non-Newtonian mixtures possessing a slowly relaxing microstructure. The shear response of nanoconfined water in a range of shear frequencies (5 to 25 KHz) reveals that relaxation time diverges with reducing film thickness. It suggests that slow relaxation under confinement possibly arises due to existence of a critical point with respect to slit width. This criticality is similar to the capillary condensation in porous media.