The Surface Wettability and Adhesion of Poly(Ester Urethane)s and Poly(Ether Urethane)s

In this study the wetting characteristics of untreated and plasma-treated polyurethane thin films were investigated. The degree of wettability was investigated by measuring the contact angle formed between a liquid drop and the solid surface. The work of adhesion, interfacial free energy, spreading coefficient, and Girifalco–Good's interaction parameter changed significantly for plasma-treated polyurethane films. Both complete and partial wetting were analyzed from the spreading coefficient of liquid drops on the solid substrate.     

Topography driven spreading

Roughening a hydrophobic surface enhances its nonwetting properties into superhydrophobicity. For liquids other than water, roughness can induce a complete rollup of a droplet. However, topographic effects can also enhance partial wetting by a given liquid into complete wetting to create superwetting. In this work, a model system of spreading droplets of a nonvolatile liquid on surfaces having lithographically produced pillars is used to show that superwetting also modifies the dynamics of spreading. The edge speed-dynamic contact angle relation is shown to obey a simple power law, and such power laws are shown to apply to naturally occurring surfaces.     

The Role of Surface Chemistry on Spreading Kinetics of Molten Silicides on Silicon Carbide

The spreading time for millimeter-sized droplets of nonreactive molten silicides on silicon carbide in high vacuum is several orders of magnitude higher than typical spreading times observed in nonreactive metal/ceramic systems. To explain this paradox, two types of experiments were performed: (i) wetting experiments for various nonreactive CuSi alloys on -SiC single crystals using the sessile drop and dispensed drop techniques, with emphasis on determining the initial contact angle; and (ii) characterization of surface chemistry of SiC after different heat treatments in high-vacuum furnaces. It is shown that spreading kinetics in these systems are controlled by the kinetics of removing of wetting barriers present or developed in situ on SiC surface.     

固体表面液滴铺展与润湿接触线的移动分析

液滴在固体表面上的铺展行为与润湿特性对许多工业生产过程的研究具有重要意义.根据液滴在光滑表面上的受力情况,建立了液滴平壁铺展的动力学模型.应用润滑近似方法和二维Navier-Stokes方程,建立了液滴沿理想表面铺展的动量和连续性方程.根据建立的方程,应用数值解法求解并详细分析了液滴在铺展过程中膜厚、接触线铺展半径以及铺展速度随时间的变化关系.研究结果表明:液滴的铺展过程可分为扩展和收缩两个阶段,铺展过程伴随着表面能、动能以及各种势能的相互转化,液滴最终的铺展半径大小由固体基面固有的润湿特性所决定;液滴在铺展过程中出现的"坍塌效应"与弯曲液面处的Laplace压力差有关;铺展半径随时间变化的标定律近似满足"1/7"次方标度律.     

Glissement de gouttes de liquide sur des solides mous

Viscoelastic braking due to the motion of the wetting ridge during spreading of a liquid drop on a soft, viscoelastic solid is now established in axisymmetric conditions where only capillary forces cause motion of the triple wetting (or dewetting) line. We consider here preliminary results where this same phenomenon of slowing down prevents rapid flow of the liquid on an inclined elastomeric plane.     

Limiting phenomena for the spreading of water on polymer films by electrowetting

This paper is about fundamental limitations in electrowetting, used as a tool for spreading water solutions on hydrophobic surfaces, like the surface of a polymer film. Up to which point can an electric voltage decrease the contact angle? The first limitation comes when using pure water, above a threshold voltage, little droplets are emitted at the perimeter of the mother drop. We present an analysis of the drop contour line stability, involving competition between electrostatic and capillary forces, which is compatible with observations. The use of salted water solutions suppresses this instability, then one faces a second limitation: the evolution of the contact angle saturates before complete wetting. We show that this saturation is caused by ionisation of the air in the vicinity of the drop edge. We analyse the luminescence induced by gas ionization and measure the related electrical discharges. We explain how air ionization suppresses the driving force for electrowetting and how it induces the formation of an hydrophillic ring around the drop.     

Lattice Boltzmann simulations of drops colliding with solid surfaces

Video images of drops colliding with solid surfaces shown by Rioboo et al. (2002) reveal that, for large drop velocities, the drops flatten and form a ring structure before receding and, in some cases, rebounding from the surface. They described the sequence of events in terms of four distinct regimes. During the initial kinematic phase, the dimensionless wetting radius of the drop follows a universal form if the drop Weber and Reynolds numbers are sufficiently large. In the second phase, the drop becomes highly flattened and the values of the Weber and Reynolds numbers influence the time evolution of the dimensionless wetting radius and its maximum value. This is followed by a third phase in which the wetting radius begins to decrease with time and the wettability of the surface influences the dynamics. This paper presents simulation results for the early stages of drop impact and spreading on a partially wetting solid surface. The simulations were performed with a modified version of the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) developed by Inamuro et al. (2004) for a liquid-gas density ratio of 1000. The Inamuro et al. version of the LBM was modified by incorporating rigid, no-slip boundary conditions and incorporating a boundary condition on the normal derivative of the order parameter to impose the desired equilibrium contact angle.     

微矩形凹槽表面液滴各向异性浸润行为的研究

受自然界启发,仿生微结构被广泛用于调控固-液界面的性质.研究显示,液滴在微结构表面的各向异性浸润行为可用于实现微流动方向和速度的控制,且其各向异性浸润与微结构的尺寸和分布等密切相关.本文研究了微矩形凹槽尺寸对液滴各向异性浸润行为的影响规律.结果显示,液滴沿平行沟槽的方向具有较小的运动阻力、易铺展,因此具有较小接触角;而垂直于沟槽方向,由于沟槽的阻隔作用具有较大运动阻力,因而具有较大接触角,并且在垂直方向液滴的浸润过程是三相线一系列钉扎和跳跃行为.在微矩形凹槽表面,液滴沿平行方向接触角θ//与肋板宽度R和凹槽宽度G密切相关,其值与表面固体面积比成反比;而垂直于沟槽方向的接触角θ⊥随肋板宽度R和凹槽宽度G变化基本保持不变.同时各向异性液滴的变形比L/W、特征方向接触角比值θ⊥/θ//与表面固体面积比成正比.研究结果有助于加深理解微结构表面浸润行为的机制,并为微矩形凹槽在微流动控制方向的应用提供技术支持.     

A mesoscopic model for (de)wetting

We present a mesoscopic model for simulating the dynamics of a non-volatile liquid on a solid substrate. The wetting properties of the solid can be tuned from complete wetting to total non-wetting. This model opens the way to study the dynamics of drops and liquid thin films at mesoscopic length scales of the order of the nanometer. As particular applications, we analyze the kinetics of spreading of a liquid drop wetting a solid substrate and the dewetting of a liquid film on a hydrophobic substrate. In all these cases, very good agreement is found between simulations and theoretical predictions.     

Spreading of a drop on a contaminated substrate

Most wetting or spreading problems are treated with surface and interfacial free energies taken as constants for the system in question. We consider here the case where a two-dimensional drop (ribbon) is deposited on a solid substrate bearing a very fine layer of a contaminant which modifies the effective drop/solid interfacial free energy. As the contaminant diffuses into the drop, the interfacial free energy, and thus the capillary balance, evolve. This has strange effects on wetting behaviour, including causing a wetting `overshoot'. Possible applications are briefly discussed.     

The debate on the dependence of apparent contact angles on drop contact area or three-phase contact line: A review

A sessile drop is an isolated drop which has been deposited on a solid substrate where the wetted area is limited by the three-phase contact line and characterized by contact angle, contact radius and drop height. Although, wetting has been studied using contact angles of drops on solids for more than 200 years, the question remains unanswered: Is wetting of a rough and chemically heterogeneous surface controlled by the interactions within the solid/liquid contact area beneath the droplet or only at the three-phase contact line? After the publications of Pease in 1945, Extrand in 1997, 2003 and Gao and McCarthy in 2007 and 2009, it was proposed that advancing, receding contact angles, and contact angle hysteresis of rough and chemically heterogeneous surfaces are determined by interactions of the liquid and the solid at the three-phase contact line alone and the interfacial area within the contact perimeter is irrelevant. As a consequence of this statement, the well-known Wenzel (1934) and Cassie (1945) equations which were derived using the contact area approach are proposed to be invalid and should be abandoned. A hot debate started in the field of surface science after 2007, between the three-phase contact line and interfacial contact area approach defenders. This paper presents a review of the published articles on contact angles and summarizes the views of the both sides. After presenting a brief history of the contact angles and their measurement methods, we discussed the basic contact angle theory and applications of contact angles on the characterization of flat, rough and micropatterned superhydrophobic surfaces. The weak and strong sides of both three-phase contact line and contact area approaches were discussed in detail and some practical conclusions were drawn.     

Precursor film controlled wetting of Pb on Cu

Wetting in a system where the kinetics of drop spreading are controlled by the rate of formation of a precursor film is modeled for the first time at the atomistic scale. Molecular dynamics simulations of Pb(l) wetting Cu(111) and Cu(100) show that a precursor film of atomic thickness evolves and spreads diffusively. This precursor film spreads significantly faster on Cu(111) than on Cu(100). For Cu(100), the kinetics of drop spreading are dramatically decreased by slow advancement of the precursor film. Slow precursor film kinetics on Cu(100) are partly due to the formation of a surface alloy at the solid-liquid interface which does not occur on Cu(111).     

Investigations into wetting and spreading behaviors of impacting metal droplet under ultrasonic vibration control

Ultrasonic-assisted metal droplet deposition (UAMDD) is currently considered a promising technology in droplet-based 3D printing due to its capability to change the wetting and spreading behaviors at the droplet-substrate interface. However, the involved contact dynamics during impacting droplet deposition, particularly the complex physical interaction and metallurgical reaction of induced wetting-spreading-solidification by the external energy, remain unclear to date, which hinders the quantitative prediction and regulation of the microstructures and bonding property of the UAMDD bumps. Here, the wettability of the impacting metal droplet ejected by a piezoelectric micro-jet device (PMJD) on non-wetting and wetting ultrasonic vibration substrates is studied, and the corresponding spreading diameter, contact angle, and bonding strength are also discussed. For the non-wetting substrate, the wettability of the droplet can be significantly increased due to the extrusion of the vibration substrate and the momentum transfer layer at the droplet-substrate interface. And the wettability of the droplet on a wetting substrate is increased at a lower vibration amplitude, which is driven by the momentum transfer layer and the capillary waves at the liquid–vapor interface. Moreover, the effects of the ultrasonic amplitude on the droplet spreading are studied under the resonant frequency of 18.2–18.4 kHz. Compared to deposit droplets on a static substrate, such UAMDD has 31% and 2.1% increments in the spreading diameters for the non-wetting and wetting systems, and the corresponding adhesion tangential forces are increased by 3.85 and 5.59 times.     

Sonoprocessing of wetting of SiC by liquid Al: A thermodynamic and kinetic study

The sonoprocessing of droplet spreading during the wetting process of molten aluminum droplets on SiC ceramic substrates at 700 °C is investigated in this paper. When wetting is assisted by a 20 kHz frequency ultrasonic field, the wettability of liquid metal gets enhanced, which has been determined by the variations in thermodynamic energy and wetting kinetics. Wetting kinetic characteristics are divided into two stages according to pinning and depinning states of substrate/droplet contact lines. The droplet is static when the contact line is pinning, while it is forced to move when the contact line is depinning. When analyzing the pinning stage, high-speed photography reveals the evidence of oxide films being rapidly crushed outside the aluminum droplet. In this work, atomic models of spherical Al core being wrapped by alumina shell are tentatively built, whose dioxide microstructures are being transformed from face-centered cubic into liquid at the atomic scale. At the same time, the wetting experiment reveals that the oxide films show changes in the period of sonoprocessing from 3rd to 5th second.During the ultrasonic spreading behavior in the late stage, there is a trend of evident expansion of the base contact area. The entire ultrasonic process lasts for no longer than 10 s. With the aid of ultrasonic sinusoidal waves, the wettability of metal Al gets a rapid improvement. Both molecular dynamic (MD) investigations and the experiments results reveal that the precursor film phenomenon is never found unless wetting is assisted by ultrasonic treatments. However, the precursor film appears near the triple line after using ultrasonics in the droplet wetting process, whose formation is driven by ultrasonic oscillations. Due to the precursor film, the ultrasonic wetting contact angle is lower than the non-ultrasonic contact angle. In addition, the time-variant effective ultrasonic energy has been quantitatively evaluated. The numerical expressions of thermodynamic variables are well verified by former ultrasonic spreading test results, which altogether provide an intrinsic explanation of the fast-decreasing contact angle of Al/SiC.     

Spreading of liquid drops on Agar gels

We study the spreading of pure water drops or water drops with surfactine (surfactant produced by bacteria Bacillus Subtilis) on gels (Agar/Water gel). We find that, surprisingly, the drops do not spread indefinitely, but remain in a state of partial wetting. Eventually the liquid diffuses into the gel on a time scale short with respect to evaporation times. The drops containing surfactant show a complex dynamics: at first the spreading velocity decreases, until the front stops and starts receding at about constant velocity. Concurrently, a second front detaches from the rim of the drop if the agar concentration is sufficiently low, and continues to move outwards.     

三维倾斜平板液氧降膜润湿数值模拟研究

建立三维倾斜平板降膜模型,利用VOF两相流模型计算了液氧降膜的润湿情况,研究了工质物性、倾斜角、液膜入口高度对润湿面积的影响。结果表明:Weber数(We)相同时,液氧和水的润湿比均随Kapitza数(Ka)增大而减小;相同Ka下,液氧和水的润湿比均随We增大而增大,而液氧润湿比一直小于水润湿比,两者的差值也随We增大而增大。拟合得到液氧在液膜入口高度0.4 mm、接触角70°时的界面润湿比经验关联式,拟合值和模拟值相对误差≤±20%;在We=0.76时,液氧的润湿比随倾斜角增大而减小,但降低速率随Ka增大而减小;在倾斜角为90°时,易出现液膜脱离壁面的现象;当We固定时,液氧的润湿比随液膜入口高度增大而增大。     

Electrowetting-induced oil film entrapment and instability

We investigate the spreading at variable rate of a water drop on a smooth hydrophobic substrate in an ambient oil bath driven by electrowetting. We find that a thin film of oil is entrapped under the drop. Its thickness is described by an extension of the Landau-Levich law of dip coating that includes the electrostatic pressure contribution. Once trapped, the thin film becomes unstable under the competing effects of the electrostatic pressure and surface tension and dewets into microscopic droplets, in agreement with a linear stability analysis. Our results recommend electrowetting as an efficient experimental approach to the fundamental problem of dynamic wetting in the presence of a tunable substrate-liquid interaction.     

Dipole-dependent slip of Newtonian liquids at smooth solid hydrophobic surfaces

We present atomic force microscopy observations of the "effective" slippage of various nonpolar and polar liquids on alkylsilane coated glass surfaces. For small contact angle nonpolar liquids, the slip length decreases as one approaches a wetting transition. However, for large contact angle polar liquids it is found that the slip length is primarily influenced by the dipole moment, rather than the wettability of the liquid for the surface, where the slip length decreases with increasing dipole moment.