Electroosmotic flow (EOF), a consequence of an imposed electric field onto an electrolyte solution in the tangential direction of a charged surface, has emerged as an important phenomenon in electrokinetic transport at the micro/nano‐scale. Because of their ability to efficiently pump liquids in miniaturized systems without incorporating any mechanical parts, electroosmotic methods for fluid pumping have been adopted in versatile applications—from biotechnology to environmental science. To understand the electrokinetic pumping mechanism, it is crucial to identify the role of an ionically polarized layer, the so‐called electrical double layer (EDL), which forms in the vicinity of a charged solid–liquid interface, as well as the characteristic length scale of the conducting media. Therefore, in this tutorial review, we summarize the development of EDL models from a historical point of view to elucidate the interplay and configuration of water molecules and ions in the vicinity of a solid–liquid interface. Moreover, we discuss the physico‐chemical phenomena owing to the interaction of EDL when the characteristic length of the conducting media is decreased from the micro‐scale to the nano‐scale. Finally, we highlight the pioneering studies and the most recent works on EOF devoted to both theoretical and experimental aspects. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The classical Fourier's law fails in extremely small and ultrafast heat conduction even at ordinary temperatures due to strong thermodynamic nonequilibrium effects. In this work, a macroscopic phonon hydrodynamic equation beyond Fourier's law with a relaxation term and nonlocal terms is derived through a perturbation expansion to the phonon Boltzmann equation around a four-moment nonequilibrium solution. The temperature jump and heat flux tangential retardant boundary conditions are developed based on the Maxwell model of the phonon-boundary interaction. Extensive steady-state and transient nanoscale heat transport cases are modeled by the phonon hydrodynamic model, which produces quantitative predictions in good agreement with available phonon Boltzmann equation solutions and experimental results. The phonon hydrodynamic model provides a simple and elegant mathematical description of non-Fourier heat conduction with a clear and intuitive physical picture. The present work will promote deeper understanding and macroscopic modeling of heat transport in extreme states.

The momentum exchange method has been widely used in lattice Boltzmann simulations for particle-fluid interactions. Although proved accurate for still walls, it will result in inaccurate particle dynamics without corrections. In this work, we reveal the physical cause of this problem and find that the initial momentum of the net mass transfer through boundaries in the moving-boundary treatment is not counted in the conventional momentum exchange method. A corrected momentum exchange method is then proposed by taking into account the initial momentum of the net mass transfer at each time step. The method is easy to implement with negligible extra computation cost. Direct numerical simulations of a single elliptical particle sedimentation are carried out to evaluate the accuracy for our method as well as other lattice Boltzmann-based methods by comparisons with the results of the finite element method. A shear flow test shows that our method is Galilean invariant.

The single mode relaxation time approximation has been demonstrated to greatly underestimate the lattice thermal conductivity of two-dimensional materials due to the collective effect of phonon normal scattering. Callaway's dual relaxation model represents a good approximation to the otherwise ab initio solution of the phonon Boltzmann equation. In this work we develop a discrete-ordinate-method (DOM) scheme for the numerical solution of the phonon Boltzmann equation under Callaway's model. Heat transport in a graphene ribbon with different geometries is modeled by our scheme, which produces results quite consistent with the available molecular dynamics, Monte Carlo simulations, and experimental measurements. Callaway's lattice thermal conductivity model with empirical boundary scattering rates is examined and shown to overestimate or underestimate the direct DOM solution. The length convergence of the lattice thermal conductivity of a rectangular graphene ribbon is explored and found to depend appreciably on the ribbon width, with a semiquantitative correlation provided between the convergence length and the width. Finally, we predict the existence of a phonon Knudsen minimum in a graphene ribbon only at a low system temperature and isotope concentration so that the average normal scattering rate is two orders of magnitude stronger than the intrinsic resistive one. The present work will promote not only the methodology for the solution of the phonon Boltzmann equation but also the theoretical modeling and experimental detection of hydrodynamic phonon transport in two-dimensional materials.