Transition from Cassie to impaled state during drop impact on groove-textured solid surfaces

Droplet Spreading Characteristics on Ultra-Slippery Solid Hydrophilic Surfaces with Ultra-Low Contact Angle Hysteresis

Dynamic interactions of the droplet impact on a solid surface are essential to many emerging applications, such as electronics cooling, ink-jet printing, water harvesting/collection, anti-frosting/icing, and microfluidic and biomedical device applications. Despite extensive studies on the kinematic features of the droplet impact on a surface over the last two decades, the spreading characteristics of the droplet impact on a solid hydrophilic surface with ultra-low contact angle hysteresis are unclear. This paper clarifies the specific role of the contact angle and contact angle hysteresis at each stage of the droplet impact and spreading process. The spreading characteristics of the droplet impact on an ultra-slippery hydrophilic solid surface are systematically compared with those on plain hydrophilic, hydroxylated hydrophilic, and plain hydrophobic surfaces. The results reveal that the maximum spreading factor (βmax) of impacting droplets is mainly dependent on the contact angle and We. βmax increases with the increase in We and the decrease in the contact angle. Low contact angle hysteresis can decrease the time required to reach the maximum spreading diameter and the time interval during which the maximum spreading diameter is maintained when the contact angles are similar. Moreover, the effect of the surface inclination angle on the spreading and slipping dynamics of impacting droplets is investigated. With the increase in the inclination angle and We, the gliding distance of the impacting droplet becomes longer. Ultra-low contact angle hysteresis enables an impacting droplet to slip continuously on the ultra-slippery hydrophilic surface without being pinned to the surface. The findings of this work not only show the important role of the surface wettability in droplet spreading characteristics but also present a pathway to controlling the dynamic interactions of impacting droplets with ultra-slippery hydrophilic surfaces.

Effect of adhesion force on the height pesticide droplets bounce on impaction with cabbage leaf surfaces

The relationship between adhesion force and the height drops containing difenoconazole-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DF-MSNs)/Tween 80 bounce on cabbage leaf surfaces was investigated as a function of Tween 80 concentration. The adhesion force of a pesticide droplet on cabbage leaf surfaces was assessed using a high-sensitivity microelectromechanical balance system and the impact behavior was recorded with a high-speed camera. The height droplets bounced decreased with increasing adhesion force, with a negative correlation between the height of the bouncing drops and adhesion force. Although droplets containing ≥0.06% Tween 80 adhered to the cabbage leaves, the retraction height was still observed to decrease as the adhesion force increased. The experimental results indicate that for cabbage leaf surfaces, the adhesion force has a significant effect on the height drops bounce. The results provide new insights into how researchers can screen for formulations for hydrophobic target crops and how to increase spray adhesion to difficult-to-wet crop leaf surfaces.

Droplet Bouncing and Breakup during Impact on a Microgrooved Surface

We experimentally investigate the impact dynamics of a microliter water droplet on a hydrophobic microgrooved surface. The surface is fabricated using photolithography, and high-speed visualization is employed to record the time-varying droplet shapes in the transverse and longitudinal directions. The effect of the pitch of the grooved surface and Weber number on the droplet dynamics and impact outcome are studied. At low pitch and Weber number, the maximum droplet spreading is found to be greater in the longitudinal direction than the transverse direction to the grooves. The preferential spreading inversely scales with the pitch at a given Weber number. In this case, the outcome is no bouncing (NB); however, this changes at larger pitch or Weber number. Under these conditions, the following outcomes are obtained as a function of the pitch and Weber number: droplet completely bounces off the surface (CB), bouncing occurs with droplet breakup (BDB), or no bouncing because of a Cassie to Wenzel wetting transition (NBW). In BDB and NBW, the liquid partially or completely penetrates the grooves beneath the droplet as a result of the wetting transition. The former results in droplet breakup alongside bouncing, while the latter suppresses the bouncing. These outcomes are demarcated on the Weber number-dimensionless pitch plane, and the proposed regime map suggests the existence of a critical Weber number or pitch for the transition from one regime to the other. CB and BDB are quantified by plotting the coefficient of restitution of the bouncing droplet and the volume of the daughter droplet left on the surface, respectively. The critical Weber number needed for the transition from CB to BDB is estimated using an existing mathematical model and is compared with the measurements. The comparison is good and provides insights into the mechanism of liquid penetration into the grooves. The present results on microgrooved surfaces are compared with published results on micropillared surfaces in order to assess the water-repelling properties of the two surfaces.

Maximum Spreading of Liquid Drops Impacting on Groove-Textured Surfaces: Effect of Surface Texture

Maximum spreading of liquid drops impacting on solid surfaces textured with unidirectional parallel grooves is studied for drop Weber number in the range 1-100 focusing on the role of texture geometry and wettability. The maximum spread factor of impacting drops measured perpendicular to grooves, βm,⊥ is seen to be less than that measured parallel to grooves, βm,∥. The difference between βm,⊥ and βm,∥ increases with drop impact velocity. This deviation of βm,⊥ from βm,∥ is analyzed by considering the possible mechanisms, corresponding to experimental observations-(1) impregnation of drop into the grooves, (2) convex shape of liquid-vapor interface near contact line at maximum spreading, and (3) contact line pinning of spreading drop at the pillar edges-by incorporating them into an energy conservation-based model. The analysis reveals that contact line pinning offers a physically meaningful justification of the observed deviation of βm,⊥ from βm,∥ compared to other possible candidates. A unified model, incorporating all the above-mentioned mechanisms, is formulated, which predicts βm,⊥ on several groove-textured surfaces made of intrinsically hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials with an average error of 8.3%. The effect of groove-texture geometrical parameters on maximum drop spreading is explained using this unified model. A special case of the unified model, with contact line pinning absent, predicts βm,∥ with an average error of 6.3%.

Minimum energy paths of wetting transitions on grooved surfaces

A method that computes minimum energy paths (MEPs) of wetting transitions is developed. The method couples the Cahn-Hilliard formulation of a modified phase-field method with the simplified string method. Its main computational kernel is the fast Fourier transform that is efficiently performed on graphics processing units. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated on two types of transitions of droplets on grooved surfaces. The first is the transition from the Cassie-Baxter wetting state to the Wenzel state, where it is shown that it progresses in a sequential manner with the droplet wetting each groove successively. The second transition type is a lateral displacement of the droplet against the grooves, where the droplet successively detaches/attaches from/to the rear/front protrusion of the surface (a transition in the reverse order is also possible). The energy barriers of both the transitions are extracted from the MEP; they are useful for the evaluation of the robustness of superhydrophobic surfaces (resistance to the Cassie-Baxter to Wenzel transition) and the droplet mobility on those surfaces (high mobility/small resistance to lateral displacements). The relation of the MEP with the potential transition paths coming from the solution space mapping is discussed.

Effect of topography on the wetting of nanoscale patterns: experimental and modeling studies

We investigated the influence of nanoscale pattern shapes, contours, and surface chemistry on wetting behavior using a combination of experimental and modeling approaches. Among the investigated topographical shapes, re-entrant geometries showed superior performance owing to their ability to restrain the liquid-air interface in accordance with Gibbs criteria. The wetting state is also controlled by the surface texture in addition to the surface chemistry. Topographies with smaller intrinsic angles are better able to support the liquid droplet. Based on these observations, two geometrical relationships for designing superhydrophobic patterns exhibiting the Cassie-Baxter state are proposed. A detailed analysis of the simulation results showed the presence of viscous forces during the initial transient phase of the droplet interaction with the solid surface even at negligible normal velocity, which was verified experimentally using a high-speed imaging technique. During this transient phase, for a polystyrene surface, the liquid front was observed to be moving with a radial velocity of 0.4 m s(-1), which gradually decreased to almost zero after 35 ms. We observed that the viscous energy dissipation density is influenced by the surface material and topography and the wetting state. The viscous energy dissipation density is minimal in the case of the Cassie-Baxter state, while it becomes quite significant for the Wenzel state. The viscous effects are reduced for topographies with smooth geometries and surfaces with high slip length.