title: Complete wetting of graphene by biological lipids.
abstract: Graphene nanosheets have been demonstrated to extract large amounts of lipid molecules directly out of the cell membrane of bacteria and thus cause serious damage to the cell's integrity. This interesting phenomenon, however, is so far not well understood theoretically. Here through extensive molecular dynamics simulations and theoretical analyses, we show that this phenomenon can be categorized as a complete wetting of graphene by membrane lipids in water. A wetting-based theory was utilized to associate the free energy change during the microscopic extraction of a lipid with the spreading parameter for the macroscopic wetting. With a customized thermodynamic cycle for detailed energetics, we show that the dispersive adhesion between graphene and lipids plays a dominant role during this extraction as manifested by the curved graphene. Our simulation results suggest that biological lipids can completely wet the concave, flat or even convex (with a small curvature) surface of a graphene sheet.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China. bluan@us.ibm.com ruhongz@us.ibm.com and IBM Research at T. J. Watson Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Binquan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Luan
authors.affiliation: IBM Research at T. J. Watson Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Tien
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Huynh
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China. bluan@us.ibm.com ruhongz@us.ibm.com and IBM Research at T. J. Watson Center, 1101 Kitchawan Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
authors.forename: Ruhong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry; D008563:Membrane Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D013499:Surface Properties; D013816:Thermodynamics; D014867:Water; D017155:Wettability
chemical_list: D008055:Lipids; D008563:Membrane Lipids; D014867:Water; D006108:Graphite