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Ionic Coulomb blockade in nanochannels is shown to be a consequence of a second Wien effect, resulting from the dissociation of Bjerrum pairs that are formed under confinement.

The pressure-driven flow rate through individual carbon nanotubes is precisely determined from the hydrodynamics of emerging water jets, revealing unexpectedly large and radius-dependent surface slippage.

Blue energy can be cleanly and renewably harvested from a salinity gradient. The large-scale viability of this non-intermittent source is restricted by certain challenges, including the inefficiency of present harvesting technologies. This Perspective describes how nanofluidics can afford membranes better able to convert chemical potentials to electrical potentials.

Radiation transfer on the nanoscale across gaps varying between 30 nm and 2.5 µm is investigated experimentally. The enhancement of heat transfer by evanescent wave contributions may pave the way for the design of sub-micrometre nanoscale heaters and radiators.

Slit-like nanochannels of pristine graphite and activated carbon, fabricated by van der Waals assembly of pristine or sculpted graphite crystals, enable comprehensive ionic response measurements and the systematic realization of their ion transport properties. These are attributed to optimal combinations of (mobile) surface charge and slippage effects at the channel wall surface in both pristine and activated nanochannels.

While nanofluidics demonstrate unconventional properties at the nanoscale, large-scale implementation remains challenging. The authors demonstrate macroscale resonant electro-osmotic transport in asymmetric membranes for advanced water filtration applications.

Ionic liquids are important for energy storage and lubrication but their behaviour at electrified interfaces remains elusive. Confined ionic liquids are now shown to exhibit a dramatic change to a solid-like phase pointing to capillary freezing.

Carbon nanotubes with 2 nm channel radius are shown to display pressure-driven ionic currents, which share some similarities to the response of biological mechanosensitive ion channels to tension.

A very large, osmotically induced electric current is generated by a salinity gradient between the ends of a single boron nitride transmembrane nanotube, owing to the anomalously high surface charge carried by the nanotube’s internal surface in water at large pH.

Understanding liquid friction on solid surfaces is key for fluid transport, with recent findings highlighting the role of solid internal excitations. Authors use AFM to show that supercooled glycerol’s slip length on mica increases unexpectedly strongly with decreasing temperature. The observations suggest that resonating vibrations within surface play a key role in liquid friction, challenging existing models.

Carbon nanotubes are promising candidates for transport of ions and charges, but the response of carbon nanotubes under osmotic forcings is not well explored. Here the authors report enhanced ion-specific osmotic transport in individual double-walled carbon nanotubes.

Shear thickening characterizes liquid suspensions of particles that reversibly solidify subject to stress. Here, Comtetet al. show that shear thickening occurs at the transition from lubricated contacts to frictional contacts at a single-particle level, which can be linked to the change in macroscopic rheology.

The rigidity of solid nanocontacts formed when metals touch is apparently lost liquidlike under large mechanical oscillations. As we show theoretically, there is no melting but oscillated nanocontacts undergo a remarkable reversible stick-slip rheology.

The mechanical behaviour of gold nanojunctions is investigated at the atomic scale using tuning-fork atomic-force microscopy, revealing a fluidic state at high strains with signatures of viscous-like dissipation and capillary-like adhesion.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) have similar surface crystallography and mechanical properties. It is now shown that the interlayer sliding friction in multilayer CNTs and BNNTs is, however, different: whereas the telescopic sliding of semi-metallic multiwalled CNTs is known to be vanishingly small, multiwalled insulating BNNTs exhibit ultrahigh interlayer friction that is proportional to the contact area—a result ascribed to the ionic character of boron nitride.