Nanofluidics 2026 Conference

Nanofluidics is the science and technology of fluid behavior when the fluid is confined to small spaces. The dimensions of these spaces range from roughly 1 nm to several tens of nanometers. At such small dimensions, unusual phenomena come into play. The Nanofluidics 2026 Conference is an international meeting to bring together leading researchers in this field. The conference aims to educate students, disseminate research on nanofluidics, and promote research collaborations. This award will support attendance of junior researchers from US institutions to attend the conference. Benefits to the US come from training the next generation of scientists and engineers, and from maintaining US competitiveness, in this technologically-important area. Nanofluidics examines the behavior of fluids when confined to spaces that are comparable to dimensions of the fluid molecules. Interfacial interactions dominate in such tight confinement which can strongly affect phase behavior, transport phenomena, and electrokinetic phenomena. The technological implications are relevant to a wide variety of areas including fossil fuel recovery from pore spaces, critical mineral separation using membranes, reverse osmosis desalination, and ionic computing. The Nanofluidics 2026 Conference scheduled in February 2026 in Tahoe City, CA aims to discuss the cutting edge research in this field. Ten students, post-doctoral fellows, or other researchers from US institutions will be supported by this travel grant. These researchers will benefit from close interactions with top researchers in this field, nucleate new research directions, and improve the impact of their own research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.