Modulating contact angle hysteresis to direct fluid droplets along a homogenous surface

The shape and motion of drops on surfaces is governed by the balance between the driving and the pinning forces. Here we demonstrate control over the motion of droplets on an inclined surface by exerting control over the contact angle hysteresis. The external modulation of contact angle hysteresis is achieved through a voltage-induced local molecular reorganization within the surface film at the solid-liquid interface. We show that tuning contact angle hysteresis alone is sufficient to direct and deform drops when subjected to a constant external driving force, here gravity, in the absence of a pre-defined surface energy gradient or pattern. We also show that the observed stretching and contraction of the drops mimic the motion of an inchworm. Such reversible manipulation of the pinning forces could be an attractive means to direct drops, especially with the dominance of surface forces at micro-/nanoscale.     

Zum Einfluss von in Flüssigkeiten unter Druck gelösten Gasen auf Grenzflächenspannungen und Benetzungseigenschaften

Measurements of interfacial tensions of water and ethanol in dense carbon dioxide up to 10 MPa and 373 K were performed. Also, in order to predict the wettability of these liquids on teflon and glass surfaces in the presence of carbon dioxide, contact angles between these liquids and both surfaces were determined under the same conditions of pressure and temperature. The interfacial tension were measured according to the pendant drop method. A mathematical derivation for the evaluation of the interfacial tension according to the geometry of the pendant drop and the difference of the density between the phases is presented. The contact angle determinations were performed using both the static and the dynamic method. The results show that because of the solubility of carbon dioxide in the liquids, the measured interfacial tensions are much lower than the interfacial tension of the pure substances. The interfacial tension appears as a function of only the density of CO₂ above its critical temperature [1]. Even though the solubility of carbon dioxide in the liquid phase affects the interfacial tension, such a clear relation between these variables, like the one between the interfacial tension and the density of carbon dioxide, cannot be observed. The excess concentration on the interphase, as a measurement of adsorption according to Gibbs, was calculated for both systems. The contact angle of water on teflon surface increases with pressure until total non wetting is reached. On the other hand, the contact angle of ethanol decreases with the increasing pressure until spreading occurs. The same phenomena was noted for the wetting characteristic of water on glass surface. The contact angle of water increases as pressure increases. Ethanol spreads totally on the surface of glass at all evaluated pressures. With the dynamic method, contact anglesgreater than the ones obtained with the static method were measured.     

Superhydrophilic textured-surfaces on stainless steel substrates

Aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) is used to produce micro/nano-textured surfaces on stainless steel substrates at low temperatures for altering the wetting property of the substrates. The micro/nano-textured surfaces were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The wetting properties of the textured surfaces were characterized by water contact angle measurements. It was found that AIC of a-Si changes the apparent contact angles of stainless steel substrates from 90° to about 0°, measured 0.5 s after a water droplet drops on the surfaces. The study also shows that a superhydrophilic textured surface can be converted to a highly hydrophobic surface with an apparent contact angle of 145° by coating the surface with a layer of octadecyltrichlorosilane.     

Superhydrophobic Graphene Foams

The static and dynamic wetting properties of a 3D graphene foam network are reported. The foam is synthesized using template‐directed chemical vapor deposition and contains pores several hundred micrometers in dimension while the walls of the foam comprise few‐layer graphene sheets that are coated with Teflon. Water contact angle measurements reveal that the foam is superhydrophobic with an advancing contact angle of ～163 degrees while the receding contact angle is ～143 degrees. The extremely water repellent nature of the foam is also confirmed when impacting water droplets are able to completely rebound from the surface. Such superhydrophobic graphene foams show potential in a variety of applications ranging from anti‐sticking and self‐cleaning to anti‐corrosion and low‐friction coatings.     

The effect of substrate surface roughness on the wettability of Sn-Bi solders

The effect of substrate surface roughness on the wettability of Sn-Bi solders is investigated by the eutectic Sn-Bi alloy on Cu/Al₂O₃ substrates at 190 °C. To engineer the surface with different roughnesses, the Cu-side of the substrates is polished with sandpaper with abrasive number 100, 240, 400, 600, 800, 1200, and 1 m alumina powder, respectively. Both dynamic and static contact angles of the solder drops are studied by the real-time image in a dynamic contact angle analyzer system (FTA200). During dynamic wetting, the wetting velocity of the solder drop decreases for the rougher surface. However, the time to reach the static contact angle seems to be identical with different substrate surface roughness. The wetting tip of the solder cap exhibits a waveform on the rough surface, indicating that the liquid drop tends to flow along the valley. As the solder drops reach a static state, the static contact angle increases with the substrate surface roughness. This demonstrates that the wettability of solders degrades as the substrates become rough.     

Molecularly Capped Omniphobic Polydimethylsiloxane Brushes with Ultra-Fast Contact Line Dynamics

Droplet friction is common and significant in any field where liquids interact with solid surfaces. This study explores the molecular capping of surface-tethered, liquid-like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes and its substantial effect on droplet friction and liquid repellency. By exchanging polymer chain terminal silanol groups for methyls using a single-step vapor phase reaction, the contact line relaxation time is decreased by three orders of magnitude–from seconds to milliseconds. This leads to a substantial reduction in the static and kinetic friction of both high- and low-surface tension fluids. Vertical droplet oscillatory imaging confirms the ultra-fast contact line dynamics of capped PDMS brushes, which is corroborated by live contact angle monitoring during fluid flow. This study proposes that truly omniphobic surfaces should not only have very small contact angle hysteresis, but their contact line relaxation time should be significantly shorter than the timescale of their useful application, i.e., a Deborah number less than unity. Capped PDMS brushes that meet these criteria demonstrate complete suppression of the coffee ring effect, excellent anti-fouling behavior, directional droplet transport, increased water harvesting performance, and transparency retention following the evaporation of non-Newtonian fluids.     

Liquid spreading on rough metal surfaces

The influence of surface roughness on the equilibrium spreading of liquids on aluminium and stainless steel surfaces with well-characterized rough machine finishes and a well-defined technique of attaining liquid drop equilibrium has been experimentally studied. The surfaces were prepared under practical conditions, i.e. without rigorous purification or attempting to eliminate anisotropy or microheterogeneities in surface-free energy. Depending on the type of roughness, i.e. spiral-grooved, radial-grooved and porous, the advancing contact angle was in approximate agreement with one of the classical contact angle/surface roughness equations. Capillary channelling along machine grooves profoundly affected the spreading and wetting behaviour and was highly dependent on the orientation and texture of roughness. Although the observed spreading was generally smooth on all surfaces it was probable that microscopic surface asperities produce small-scale non-equilibrium contact line movements and are responsible for the extensive wetting hysteresis during drop retraction.     

动态毛吸法测定纤维及粉末料的接触角研究

本文用动态毛吸法研究了表面处理对纤维浸润性的影响,结果表明碳纤维及聚酯纤维表面经冷等离子体氧处理,浸润性有很大的改善,碳纤维约提高四倍,这是因为等离子氧表面处理过程,将含氧基团羧基,羟基及羰基等引入到表面所致。同时从测得的浸润过程表面自由能改变值△γ,计算出水对纤维的接触角,它与采用接触角测定仪倾斜法所测得的结果基本上一致。从所测得的接触角值也可以看出表面经处理之后,浸润性得以改善。如碳纤维由77°降为63°,聚酯纤维由77°降为52°。此外我们还研究了煤粉和玻璃粉体系对水的浸润性,发现水对玻璃粉的浸润性优于煤粉,前者的浸润接触角为47°、后者则为90°,此接触角值也与采用接触角测定仪由静滴法测得水对片材的接触角相一致。由此可见动态毛吸法可以用于研究纤维及粉末体系的浸润性,而且操作简单易行,测试周期短。      

Adhesion and friction properties of micro/nano-engineered superhydrophobic/hydrophobic surfaces

Hydrophobic micro/nano-engineered surfaces (MNESs) with good adhesion and frictional performances were fabricated by the combination of aluminum-induced crystallization (AIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) and octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) coating. The AIC of a-Si technique was used to produce silicon micro/nano-textured surfaces, while an OTS self-assembled monolayer was used to lower the surface energies of the textured surfaces. The wetting properties of the MNESs were studied using a video-based contact angle measurement system. The adhesion and friction properties of the MNESs were investigated using a TriboIndenter. This study shows that the adhesion and frictional performances of all MNESs are significantly improved compared to untreated silicon substrate surfaces, and the adhesion and frictional performances of the OTS-modified textured surfaces strongly correlate to their surface wetting property, i.e., the larger the water contact angle, the better the adhesion and frictional performances of the OTS-modified textured surfaces.     

Experimental Investigation of Pendant and Sessile Drops in Microgravity

The experiments regarding the contact angle behavior of pendant and sessile evaporating drops were carried out in microgravity environment. All the experiments were performed in the Drop Tower of Beijing, which could supply about 3.6 s of microgravity (free-fall) time. In the experiments, firstly, drops were injected to create before microgravity. The wettability at different surfaces, contact angles dependance on the surface temperature, contact angle variety in sessile and pendant drops were measured. Different influence of the surface temperature on the contact angle of the drops were found for different substrates. To verify the feasibility of drops creation in microgravity and obtain effective techniques for the forthcoming satellite experiments, we tried to inject liquid to create bigger drop as soon as the drop entering microgravity condition. The contact angle behaviors during injection in microgravity were also obtained.     

热解碳基碳/碳复合材料的内耗特征与机制

以高纯石墨为对照材料,初步研究了热解碳基碳/碳复合材料的内耗行为,并根据实验结果提出了碳/碳复合材料的内耗机制:热滞弹性机制与静滞后型内耗机制。纤维/基体的界面内耗效应对碳/碳复合材料的内耗特性影响很大,它的存在使碳/碳复合材料产生了一些较为反常的内耗现象。      

The shape and stability of wall-bound and wall-edge-bound drops and bubbles

The behavior of wall-bound drops and bubbles is fundamental to many natural and industrial processes. Key characteristics of such capillary systems include interface shape and stability for a variety of gravity levels and orientations. Significant solutions are in hand for axisymmetric pendent drops for a variety of uniform boundary conditions along the contact line with gravity acting normal to a planar wall. The special case of a wall-bound drop or bubble that is also pinned at an edge (i.e. a ‘wall-edge-bound’ drop) is considered here where numerical solutions are obtained for interface shape and stability as functions of drop volume, contact angle, fluid properties, and uniform gravity vector. For a semi-infinite zero-thickness planar wall (plate), a critical contact angle is identified below which wall-edge-bound drops are always stable. The critical contact angle is computed as a function of the gravity vector. The numerical procedure, which makes no account for contact angle hysteresis, predicts that such wall-edge-bound drops are unconditionally unstable for any gravity field with a component that is tangent to the wall while inwardly normal to the edge. Select experiments are conducted that support the conclusions drawn from the numerical results.     

干摩擦阻尼叶片的界面约束力描述及振动响应求解

发展了一种描述复杂运动状态下界面约束力的三维干摩擦接触数值模型,该模型通过在接触界面建立多个摩擦接触点对得到多点分布的界面约束力,可以描述界面的粘滞-滑动共存状态和法向接触正压力不均匀分布。在该模型中还考虑了界面动静摩擦系数的不同和界面的各向异性。采用三维干摩擦接触数值模型和高阶谐波平衡法,计算了某真实围带阻尼结构汽轮机叶片在复杂激励下的非线性振动响应。计算出叶片振动响应在一个运动周期出现多个局部极值,呈含多谐波的周期函数。     

Sessile Drop in Microgravity: Creation, Contact Angle and Interface

We present in this paper the results obtained from a parabolic flight campaign regarding the contact angle and the drop interface behavior of sessile drops created under terrestrial gravity (1g) or in microgravity (μg). This is a preliminary study before further investigations on sessile drops evaporation under microgravity. In this study, drops are created by the mean of a syringe pump by injection through the substrate. The created drops are recorded using a video camera to extract the drops contact angles. Three fluids have been used in this study : de-ionized water, HFE-7100 and FC-72 and two heating surfaces: aluminum and PTFE. The results obtained evidence the feasibility of sessile drop creation in microgravity even for low surface tension liquids (below 15 mN m^− 1) such as FC-72 and HFE-7100. We also evidence the contact angle behavior depending of the drop diameter and the gravity level. A second objective of this study is to analyze the drop interface shape in microgravity. The goal of the these experiments is to obtain reference data on the sessile drop behavior in microgravity for future experiments to be performed in an French-Chinese scientific instrument (IMPACHT).     

Contact angle measurement on micropatterned surface using sessile drop shape fit profile detection

Abstract

Micro-nano patterned surfaces have significant applications in various fields as they behave differently under the effect of catalysts, magnetic energy, electronic emission/absorption, optics and biological cells. Engineering these topologies demands a better understanding of the contact angle. The current contact angle measurement techniques assume the drop to be a perfect sphere, neglect gravitational and molecular dispersion effects; thereby leading to inaccuracies. This is because the micro-machined surfaces exhibit sub-micrometre scale porosity and pattern dimensions are comparable to the droplet size, resulting in composite interfaces at micro-nano scale. In this paper, the authors assessed the adaptability of conventional measurement techniques for textured surfaces and developed an algorithm that is based on curve fitting over sessile drop after edge detection. The algorithm performs edge detection, contact point identification and curve fitting and corrects uneven surfaces and was tested on micro-patterned surfaces fabricated over three different materials: polydimethylsiloxane, polystyrene and acrylic using laser.     

Design of textured surfaces for super-hydrophobicity

Although the Cassie–Baxter and Wenzel equations predict contact angles for relative dimensions of micro-pillars on textured surfaces, the absolute pillar dimensions are determined by trial and error. Alternatively, geometries of natural super-hydrophobic surfaces are often imitated to design textured surfaces. Knowing the limitations of both the approaches, this work presents a constraint minimization model on the basis of Cassie–Baxter equation to determine the absolute dimensions of square micro-pillars on a textured surface so as to maximize the contact angle. The constraints are derived based on the limiting physical conditions at which spontaneous breakdown of super-hydrophobicity takes place. The single-droplet numerical simulations on textured surface gave the duration for which super-hydrophobicity is sustained. The model demonstrated that the round edged pillars, arising out of fabrication imperfections, reduce the height of the pillars without significantly compromising on the contact angle. The measurement of contact angle on the fabricated textured surfaces was found to be in agreement with the model predictions when the fabricated pillars had fairly uniform dimensions. The proposed approach is sufficiently general that its application can be extended to design other textured surfaces.     

氧化还原法制备超疏水表面及其防覆冰性能

使用化学氧化还原法制备出疏水性能优异的超疏水表面,使用接触角测量仪、扫描电镜对表面浸润性及形貌进行表征分析。制得的铝基体超疏水表面接触角高达163.31°,滚动角小于5°。探究不同反应时间对表面形貌和浸润性的影响,使用自制的结冰监测系统对制备出的超疏水表面的静态和动态水滴防覆冰性能进行探究,并结合一维传热理论和经典成核理论对实验结果进行分析。结果表明,反应80min时表面疏水效果最好,超疏水表面静态水滴延缓结冰时间约是普通样品的5倍,结冰温度也低了3.3℃,动态水滴撞击表面时,超疏水表面始终无积水和覆冰,表现出优异的静态和动态防覆冰性能。     

Controlled drop emission by wetting properties in driven liquid filaments

The controlled formation of micrometre-sized drops is of great importance to many technological applications. Here we present a wetting-based destabilization mechanism of forced microfilaments on either hydrophilic or hydrophobic stripes that leads to the periodic emission of droplets. The drop emission mechanism is triggered above the maximum critical forcing at which wetting, capillarity, viscous friction and gravity can balance to sustain a stable driven contact line. The corresponding critical filament velocity is predicted as a function of the static wetting angle, which can be tuned through the substrate behaviour, and shows a strong dependence on the filament size. This sensitivity explains the qualitative difference in the critical velocity between hydrophilic and hydrophobic stripes, and accounts for previous experimental results of splashing solids. We demonstrate that this mechanism can be used to control independently the drop size and emission period, opening the possibility of highly monodisperse and flexible drop production techniques in open microfluidic geometries.     

Superhydrophobic surfaces with hierarchical structure

The physics related to superhydrophobic surfaces has been investigated with attention of its potential applications in a variety of industrial and research fields. In the present study, we report a facile method for preparing superhydrophobic surfaces based on micro and nano scaled structures. Composite thin films are formed by using SiO₂ nanoparticles and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). The static contact angle, advancing contact angle, and receding contact angle are measured to investigate the surfaces' water repelling property. The formed SiO₂-PDMS composite films, with different nanoparticle concentrations and sizes, can render the surfaces with superhydrophobicicty, exhibiting large contact angles and small contact angle hysteresis. The composite films are observed by using the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). It is demonstrated that the hierarchical structure in micro and nano scale on the surface, plays an important role in prompting the superhydrophobic (water-repelling) properties. Wetting phenomena and related theories are also discussed within the paper.     

Friction and Wetting Transitions of Magnetic Droplets on Micropillared Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Reliable characterization of wetting properties is essential for the development and optimization of superhydrophobic surfaces. Here, the dynamics of superhydrophobicity is studied including droplet friction and wetting transitions by using droplet oscillations on micropillared surfaces. Analyzing droplet oscillations by high‐speed camera makes it possible to obtain energy dissipation parameters such as contact angle hysteresis force and viscous damping coefficients, which indicate pinning and viscous losses, respectively. It is shown that the dissipative forces increase with increasing solid fraction and magnetic force. For 10 µm diameter pillars, the solid fraction range within which droplet oscillations are possible is between 0.97% and 2.18%. Beyond the upper limit, the oscillations become heavily damped due to high friction force. Below the lower limit, the droplet is no longer supported by the pillar tops and undergoes a Cassie–Wenzel transition. This transition is found to occur at lower pressure for a moving droplet than for a static droplet. The findings can help to optimize micropillared surfaces for low‐friction droplet transport.