Stages That Lead to Drop Depinning and Onset of Motion

Drop Retention and Departure in Adiabatic Shear Flow on Structured Superhydrophobic Surfaces

Drops are retained or held on surfaces due to a retention force exerted on the drop by the surface. This retention force is a function of the surface tension of the liquid, drop geometry, and the contact angle between the drop and the surface. When external or body forces exceed the retention force, the drop begins to move. This work explores the conditions for which drop departure occurs on structured superhydrophobic surfaces in the presence of an applied shear flow. Drop departure is explored for five microstructured superhydrophobic surfaces, one nanostructured carbon nanotube surface and one smooth hydrophobic surface. Surface solid fractions range from 0.05 to 1.00, and measured static contact angles range from 121° to 161°. Droplet volumes of 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 μL are tested on each surface. For each experiment, increasing air velocity is applied to a droplet placed on a surface until the droplet departs. High-speed imaging is used to track droplet base length, height, cross-section area (as viewed from the side) and advancing/receding contact angles. Measurements of drop advancing and receding contact angles are reported at the point of departure, with increasing contact angle hysteresis observed prior to departure. Contact angle hysteresis is observed to be a good indicator of droplet mobility. Measurements of the average air velocity over the height of the droplet are determined at the point of departure for all conditions. The measured air velocity shows strong dependence on the surface solid fraction, and the required shear flow velocity decreases as the surface solid fraction decreases. This is most pronounced at very low solid fractions. A coefficient of drag for the departing drops in shear flow is calculated and is shown to decrease with increasing Reynolds number.

Friction force-based measurements for simultaneous determination of the wetting properties and stability of superhydrophobic surfaces

HYPOTHESIS

Contact angle and sliding angle measurements are widely used to characterize superhydrophobic surfaces because of the simplicity and accessibility of the technique. We hypothesize that dynamic friction measurements, with increasing pre-loads, between a water drop and a superhydrophobic surface is more accurate because this technique is less influenced by local surface inhomogeneities and temporal surface changes.

EXPERIMENTS

A water drop, held by a ring probe which is connected to a dual-axis force sensor, is sheared against a superhydrophobic surface while maintaining a constant preload. From this force-based technique, static and kinetic friction forces measurements are used to characterize the wetting properties of the superhydrophobic surfaces. Furthermore, by applying increased pre-loads to the water drop while shearing, the critical load at which the drop transitions from the Cassie-Baxter to Wenzel state is also measured.

FINDINGS

The force-based technique predicts sliding angles with reduced standard deviations (between 56 and 64%) compared to conventional optical-based measurements. Kinetic friction force measurements show a higher accuracy (between 35 and 80%) compared to static friction force measurements in characterizing the wetting properties of superhydrophobic surfaces. The critical loads for the Cassie-Baxter to Wenzel state transition allows for stability characterization between seemingly similar superhydrophobic surfaces.

Does the Roll-off Angle Depend on Work of Adhesion?

The roll-off angle of hexadecane droplets was measured on a family of nearly ideal surfaces having similar structures but different interfacial free energies. The variation in interfacial energy was reflected in the contact angles of hexadecane, which provide a measure of the work of adhesion. The hysteresis in the contact angle on these surfaces was low and approximately constant, thereby approximately removing it as a variable and allowing for an assessment of any dependence of the roll-off angle on work of adhesion directly. The results revealed no such dependence, consistent with the descriptions of early researchers in this area.