Degradation of Hydrogen Bonds Enormously Enhances Convective Heat Transfer in Nanofluidics

The ultrafast mass transport of liquid through nanochannels holds promising potential to tackle the challenge of thermal management in high-power-density electronic devices. However, convective heat transfer in underpinned nanofluidics-based environments remains elusive. Here, we report with atomistic simulations that the convective heat transfer in nanochannels can be enhanced by ∼50% due to the deterioration of hydrogen bonds subjected to internal stress. The degraded hydrogen bonds largely weaken the intrinsic constraints by local confinement, significantly promoting the mobility of the confined liquid molecules, which facilitates phonon transmission for rapid heat transfer. The internal stress is further elucidated and quantitatively correlated with the convective heat transfer through the development of a thermal-mechanics scaling law that incorporates the Nusselt number and the interaction energy between the nanoconfined liquid and solid. This work provides theoretical insights for designing nanofluidics-based cooling strategies to meet stringent thermal dissipation requirements of high-power-density electronics.