> Shahsavari and his colleagues built molecular models of carbon and boron nitride nanotubes with adjustable widths. They discovered boron nitride is best at constraining the shape of water when the nanotubes are 10.5 angstroms wide.
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Shahsavari's team modeled water molecules, which are about 3 angstroms wide, inside carbon and boron nitride nanotubes of various chiralities (the angles of their atomic lattices) and between 8 and 12 angstroms in diameter. They discovered that nanotubes in the middle diameters had the most impact on the balance between molecular interactions and van der Waals pressure that prompted the transition from a square water tube to ice.
From the images, they have 4 chains of water molecules within each nanotube, arranged hydrogen-to-oxygen, creating a rectangle from the 4 chains. The ideal nanotube is 3.5x wider than a water molecule.
Do boron nitride nanotubes work better because the alternating atoms create a slightly more polar nanotube molecule than an all-carbon nanotube?
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Shahsavari's team modeled water molecules, which are about 3 angstroms wide, inside carbon and boron nitride nanotubes of various chiralities (the angles of their atomic lattices) and between 8 and 12 angstroms in diameter. They discovered that nanotubes in the middle diameters had the most impact on the balance between molecular interactions and van der Waals pressure that prompted the transition from a square water tube to ice.
From the images, they have 4 chains of water molecules within each nanotube, arranged hydrogen-to-oxygen, creating a rectangle from the 4 chains. The ideal nanotube is 3.5x wider than a water molecule.
Do boron nitride nanotubes work better because the alternating atoms create a slightly more polar nanotube molecule than an all-carbon nanotube?