Water in motion: How charged semiflexible nanofibers affect self-diffusion of water

Even at very low concentrations, the rheology of dispersions of charged semiflexible nanofibers differs from the rheology of the pure liquid, given the fiber charge, morphology, and interactions. At the nanoscale, the thermal motion of fibers is driven by the collective motion of the solvent molecules, but to what extent does the fiber presence and motion affect the self-diffusion of the liquid molecules? By studying the self-diffusion of water in dilute nanofiber dispersions using experiments and simulations, we can show that the interplay of fiber charge and motion on water mobility is more significant than the effect of the excluded volume caused by the charged particles.