The effect of gravity on the drainage of a thin liquid film between a solid sphere and a liquid/fluid interface

A study has been made of the influence of gravitational forces on the thinning of the liquid film which forms as a solid sphere comes to rest on a liquid/fluid interface. It is found that rates of drainage can be dramatically affected by the ratio of gravity to surface tension forces within the film. At long times a secondary film can possibly be formed which spreads out radially from the apex of the sphere.     

Alkane/Alcohol mixed monolayers at the solid/liquid interface

In this work, we present the behavior of solid monolayers of binary mixtures of alkanes and alcohols adsorbed on the surface of graphite from their liquid mixtures. We demonstrate that solid monolayers form for all the combinations investigated here. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is used to identify the surface phase behavior of these mixtures, and elastic neutron incoherent scattering has been used to determine the composition of the mixed monolayers inferred by the calorimetry. The mixing behavior of the alcohol/alkane monolayer mixtures is compared quantitatively with alkane/alkane and alcohol/alcohol mixtures using a regular solution approach to model the incomplete mixing in the solid monolayer with preferential adsorption determining the surface composition. This analysis indicates the preferential adsorption of alcohols over alkanes of comparable alkyl chain length and even preferential adsorption of shorter alcohols over longer alkanes, which contrasts strongly with mixtures of alkane/alkane and alcohol/alcohol of different alkyl chain lengths where the longer homologue is always found to preferentially adsorb over the shorter. The alcohol/alkane mixtures are all found to phase separate to a significant extent in the adsorbed layer mixtures even when molecules are of a similar size. Again, this contrasts strongly with alkane/alkane and alcohol/alcohol mixtures where, although phase separation is found for molecules of significantly different size, good mixing is found for similar size species.     

Stability of thin stagnant film on a solid surface with a viscoelastic air-liquid interface

Linear stability analysis for a film on a solid surface with a viscoelastic air-liquid interface is presented. The interfacial dilatational and shear viscoelastic properties were described by Maxwell models. Dilatational and shear interfacial elasticity and viscosity were shown to improve film stability. When the interfacial rheological properties are extremely large or small, the maximum perturbation growth coefficient is shown to reduce to those for immobile and mobile interfaces respectively. Calculated values of maximum growth coefficient for thin film stabilized by 0.5% beta-lactoglobulin approached those of mobile films for thick (>2000 nm) and those for immobile films for thin (<100 nm) films respectively with the values lying between the two limits for intermediate film thicknesses.     

Local Freedericksz transitions at a nematic liquid crystal/thin film oxide ferroelectric interface

The electro-optical properties of a novel device comprising nematic liquid crystals and a thin film oxide ferroelectric (OFE) substrate are reported. The OFE was the lead zirconate-lead titanate, PZT, system with the molar composition 30:70, respectively. The first evidence of the interaction of nematic liquid crystals with the spontaneous polarisation ( Ps ) of an OFE is presented. Coupling of the ferroelectric Ps from poled grains (5-10mum in diameter) with the liquid crystal results in local Freedericksz transitions, allowing the grain structure of the substrate to be visualized. Further, this novel device structure allows the director tilt and anchoring energy of commercially available nematic materials to be quantified.     

Tunable synergism/antagonism in a mixed nonionic/anionic surfactant layer at the solid/liquid interface

The use of mixed surfactants for modification of solid surfaces is important for many applications, since beneficial synergism often occurs depending on the surfactant type and mixing conditions. Systematical information on the properties of surfactant mixtures at the solid/liquid interface can be helpful for optimizing the interactions between the surfactants and then their corresponding performance. In this work, a nonionic/anionic surfactant combination, n-dodecyl beta-d-maltoside (DM) and sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS), was selected for the study of adsorption on an oxide solid, alumina. Interestingly, the mixture of the two surfactants with opposite pH-dependence of adsorption on alumina exhibits some unique synergistic or antagonistic features that were found to be tunable in the region of pH 4-10. In addition, the DM/SDS molar ratio in the adsorbed layer was found to decrease with concentration in the saturated region at all the pH and mixing ratios tested. The decrease is attributed to the monomer concentration changes in solution due to the difference in surface activities of the two surfactants. The tunable features of this mixture at the solid/liquid interface provide a way to optimize the properties by changing the mixing conditions. This can be valuable in many applications, such as enhanced oil recovery, flotation, and solubilization.     

Evaporation of a thin liquid film

Evaporation of a thin (submicrometer size) liquid film confined between two solid substrates is studied using diffuse interface hydrodynamic model supplemented by the van der Waals equation of state. The time and space evolution of the basic thermodynamic quantities such as temperature, density, entropy, chemical potential, and entropy production is presented. The values of numerical parameters chosen correspond to those of argon. The time and space scales studied range from picoseconds to microseconds and from nanometers to micrometers correspondingly.     

Dynamic behaviour of hydrosoluble polymers at a solid/liquid interface

The behaviour of flexible hydrosoluble polymers of high molecular weight: polyacrylamide and two polyacids, poly(α, L-glutamic acid) and a copolymer of maleic acid was investigated in the context of their dynamic behaviour at solid/liquid interfaces. The adsorption rate is related to the structure of the surface in terms of remaining interacting surface sites. The desorption rate was measured by carrying out adsorption with radioactive labelled polymers, followed by exchange with unlabelled polymers. The slow exchange rate observed suggests a metastable equilibrium state owing to strong multisegment adsorption in the potential well of the surface. However, the “diffuse” polymer layer formed by loops which extend in the aqueous phase within distances of several hundred Angstroms “responds” reversibly to a change in the solvent composition. The latter effect was found by recording the hydrodynamic permeability of pores covered by the adsorbed polymer; the permeability to fluid flow is very sensitive to the loop layer thickness.     

Dynamic behavior of flexible polymers at a solid/liquid interface

The mean time spent by a macromolecule at a solid/liquid interface is analyzed in the region of adsorption saturation. The method consists of carrying out preliminary adsorption with radioactively labeled high-molecular-weight polyacrylamide and subsequently exposing the surface to a solution of unlabeled polyacrylamide. It was found that, apart from a small fraction of polymers “loosely” attached, the exchange between labeled and unlabeled polymers takes place at the interface at a very slow rate. Furthermore, desorption of surface molecules occurs only in the presence of a solution, and then the rate of desorption increases proportionally to the number of molecules in the solution. A mechanism based on a bimolecular chemical exchange process is proposed.     

Substrate evaporation induced neck-shape evolution of a liquid/solid interface

The wetting behavior and interface interaction in the CaF₂/Me and NaCl/Me systems were studied using the sessile drop method. It was observed that liquid Bi, In, Sn and Ga do not wet the CaF₂ and NaCl substrates at 1000 K and liquid Cu does not wet the CaF₂ substrate in the 1423–1573 K temperature range. Nevertheless, different spreading behavior was observed during experiments. For the CaF₂/Me systems, at 1000 K, the contact angle remains constant with time, while for the NaCl/Me systems, a non-monotonic spreading behavior was detected. For these systems the contact angle increases initially and then rapidly decreases. For the CaF₂/Cu system at 1423 K the contact angle remains constant, while it increases with time at 1573 K. It was established that the wetting behavior is attributed to the evaporation of the solid substrate, which leads to the formation of a neck-shape interface. The experimental results were well accounted for by a model, which considered the geometrical characteristic of the metal/ceramic interface and thermo-physical properties of the metals and the substrates.     

Graphene oxide hydrogel at solid/liquid interface

A strong solid/liquid interfacial interaction is found between porous alumina and graphene oxide (GO) aqueous dispersion, which promotes a fast enrichment of GO on the alumina surface and results in the formation of a GO hydrogel.     

Disjoining pressure measurements using a microfabricated groove for a molecularly thin polymer liquid film on a solid surface

A method for measuring disjoining pressure of a molecularly thin liquid film on a solid surface by using a microfabricated groove has been developed. The shape of the meniscus of a thin film in the microgroove was measured with an atomic force microscope, and the disjoining pressure was obtained from the capillary pressure obtained from the measured curvature of the meniscus. Our method is applicable to a film with a thickness greater than the diameter of gyration in the polymer molecule. Moreover, the method can detect the changes in the disjoining pressure caused by ultraviolet light irradiation, and it is effective in investigating the intermolecular interaction between a thin film and a solid surface.     

Evaluation method for heat transfer coefficient of a contact interface across a microscale thin liquid polymer film

The research presented here evaluates the heat transfer coefficient of the contact interface of a thin liquid polymer film between a pair of columnar aluminum bodies with an initial temperature difference of approximately 160 K. We measured the unsteady temperature changes inside the columns. The heat transfer test was performed with three types of liquid polymers: squalane, oleic acid, and silicone oil. The heat transfer coefficient of the polymer films as a fitting parameter was obtained by ensuring the numerically computed time evolution of the columns’ temperature corresponded with the experimentally measured data. The interfacial heat transfer coefficients of the thin polymer films (mean thickness: 60 μm) for all three polymers used were 1.75 kW/m²·K, 2.75 kW/m²·K, and 4.10 kW/m²·K. The present estimating method for determining interfacial heat transfer coefficients was suitable for a material-polymer film-material contact model. The time evolution of the temperature at the contact surfaces was also effectively evaluated using the numerical simulation.     

Formation of a non-crystalline bimolecular porous network at a liquid/solid interface

An equimolar mixture of two structurally related molecular building blocks self-assembles into a 2D non-crystalline bimolecular porous pattern at a liquid-solid interface as revealed by scanning tunneling microscopy.     

Determination of protein surface excess on a liquid/solid interface by single-molecule counting

Determination of protein surface excess is an important way of evaluating the properties of biomaterials and the characteristics of biosensors. A single-molecule counting method is presented that uses a standard fluorescence microscope to measure coverage of a liquid/solid interface by adsorbed proteins. The extremely low surface excess of lysozyme and bovine serum albumin (BSA), in a bulk concentration range from 0.3 nmol L⁻¹ (0.02 μg mL⁻¹) to 3 nmol L⁻¹ (0.2 μg mL⁻¹), were measured by recording the counts of spatially isolated single molecules on either hydrophilic (glass) or hydrophobic (polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS) surfaces at different pH. The differences observed in amounts of adsorbed proteins under different experimental conditions can be qualitatively explained by the combined interactions of electrostatic and hydrophobic forces. This, in turn, implies that single-molecule counting is an effective way of measuring surface coverage at a liquid/solid interface. Figure Adsorption fraction of proteins on different surfaces changed with pH.     

Role of pseudopolymorphism on concentration dependent competitive adsorption at a liquid/solid interface

We present for the first time a peculiar concentration effect on competitive adsorption of a binary mixture at the liquid/solid interface, which we attribute to the existence of pseudopolymorphism and its concentration dependence. These results are helpful for the understanding of phase behavior of multi-component systems at the interface.     

The adsorption structure of nonionic surfactant on the sessile mercury electrode in a thin liquid film

In relation to a colloid stability, the adsorption structure of the Stern layer on a sessile mercury electrode in a thin liquid film of nonionic surfactant was investigated by measuring the double layer capacitance. The Stern capacitance on the electrode in the film could be detected when the measuring frequency used was low, for the resistance of the film was not extremely high but of the order of several thousand ohm. It was found that the adsorption structure of nonionic surfactant in the thin liquid film shows a stratification different from that of bulk.     

Molecular patterning at a liquid/solid interface: the foldamer approach

Molecular patterning has received a lot of attention in the past decade; however, the functionalization of these surface-confined 2D patterns on the nanoscale level remains a challenge. Assembling 2D patterns from oligomeric foldamers turns out to be an interesting approach to accomplishing the controlled positioning of functional elements. We designed a family of peptidomimetic foldamers bearing a 2D turn element folding at the liquid/solid interface. The turning element was developed while studying derivatives with one turning unit. Furthermore, folding was found to be induced by the confinement of the surface. This achievement paves the way for the design of foldamers with multiple turns, providing a higher versatility in the functionalization of nanopatterns.     

On the transition between a heterogeneous and homogeneous corona in mixed polymeric micelles

Two-dimensional NMR and small-angle neutron scattering experiments were performed on comicelles of poly(N-methyl-2-vinyl pyridinium iodide)-block-poly(ethylene oxide), P2MVP-b-PEO, and poly(acrylic acid)-block-poly(acryl amide), PAA-b-PAAm, in aqueous solutions to study whether a transition between a heterogeneous (Janus-type) and homogeneous corona can be observed upon a variation of parameters that are anticipated to affect the miscibility of the PEO and PAAm coronal blocks. Investigated were the effect of a salt-induced decrease in micellar aggregation number, P agg for 1相似文献   

No intrinsic depletion layer on a polystyrene thin film at a water interface

Using neutron reflectivity, we found that there is no intrinsic depletion layer at a deuterated polystyrene (dPS) film and deuterium oxide (D(2)O) interface. A spun-cast film is susceptible to contamination on its surface from its surroundings during sample preparation. A contamination layer of hydrogenated organic material will be detected as a reduced scattering length density layer at the interface. We demonstrate that, by careful treatment of the film, contamination would be the primary cause of the reduced scattering length density layer at the interface.     

Self-assembly at the liquid/solid interface: STM reveals

The liquid/solid interface provides an ideal environment to investigate self-assembly phenomena, and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is the preferred methodology to probe the structure and the properties of physisorbed monolayers on the nanoscale. Physisorbed monolayers are of relevance in areas such as lubrication, patterning of surfaces on the nanoscale, and thin film based organic electronic devices, to name a few. It's important to gain insight in the factors which control the ordering of molecules at the liquid/solid interface in view of the targeted properties. STM provides detailed insight into the importance of molecule-substrate (epitaxy) and molecule-molecule interactions (hydrogen bonding, metal complexation, and fluorophobic/fluorophilic interactions) to direct the ordering of both achiral and chiral molecules on the atomically flat surface. By controlling the location and orientation of functional groups, chemical reactions can be induced at the liquid/solid interface, via external stimuli, such as light, or by controlled manipulation with the STM tip. The electronic properties of the self-assembled physisorbed molecules can be probed by taking advantage of the operation principle of STM, revealing spatially resolved intramolecular differences within these physisorbed molecules.