Water, unexpectedly, has the potential to withstand a massive stretching force or tension due to its internal cohesive force. Under extreme tension, the hydrostatic pressure of the water would display as absolute negative. The comprehension of such a unique thermodynamic non-equilibrium state in the phase diagram of water is still blurry, which has sparked a lot of curiosity in the field. Nevertheless, after botanists discovered it in the xylem of trees first, this so-called negative pressure of stretched water could be designed to generate extremely large pressure differences. It has been employed in a series of advanced heat and mass transfer applications, including the on-chip synthetic tree for continuous water extraction, nanoporous membranes with ultrahigh interfacial heat fluxes, and so on.
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Source: Phys.org