Effect of oxidation on the wettability of poly(dimethylsiloxane) surfaces

Understanding frictional behavior in fascia tissues through tribological modeling and material substitution

The objective of this study is to develop a reliable tribological model to enable a more thorough investigation of the frictional behavior of fascia tissues connected to non-specific lower back pain. Several models were designed and evaluated based on their coefficient of friction, using a low-frequency, low-load reciprocating motion. The study found that two technical elastomers, layered on PDMS to simulate the fascia and underlying muscle, are suitable substitutes for biological tissue in the model. The influence of tribopair geometry was also examined, and the results showed that greater conformity of contact leads to a lower COF, regardless of the material combination used. Finally, the friction properties of HA of various molecular weights and concentrations were tested.

Cost-effective equipment for surface pre-treatment for cleaning and excitation of substrates in semiconductor technology

Abstract

This article presents a cost-effective ultraviolet-ozone cleaner (UV/O3 Cleaner) for surface pre-treatment of substrates in the field of semiconductor technology. The cleaner consists of two chambers, the upper one contains the electronics, including the time counter. The lower chamber contains the two UV sterilisation lamps and a UV reflector of anodized aluminium, which confines the area of high Ozone concentration in the area of interest. The device is successfully used for surface cleaning and modification of different materials. To this end, the two important wavelengths 253.7 nm (excitation of organic residues) and 184.9 nm (production of ozone from the atmospheric environment as a strong oxidant) were first detected. The effectiveness of UV/O3 cleaning is demonstrated by improving the properties of indium tin oxide (ITO) for OLED fabrication. The contact angle of water to ITO could be reduced from 90° to 3° and for diiodomethane, it was reduced from 55° to 31° within the 10 min of irradiation. This greatly improved wettability for polar and non-polar liquids can increase the flexibility in further process control. In addition, an improvement in wettability is characterized by measuring the contact angles for titanium dioxide (TiO2) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The contact angle of water to TiO2 decreased from 70° to 10°, and that of diiodomethane to TiO2 from 54° to 31°. The wettability of PDMS was also greatly increased. Here, the contact angle of water was reduced from 109° to 24° and the contact angle to diiodomethane from 89° to 49°.

Article Highlights

Silicone Surface Fundamentals

Many of the applications of the most familiar silicone polymer, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), are a consequence of its hydrophobic nature. The key quantities underlying this behavior are the water contact angle with water droplets, the surface tension of the polymer, and its interfacial tension with water. These quantities are reviewed for PDMS and the fluorsilicone polymethyltrifluoropropylsiloxane (PMTFPS) as well as some other less common, more highly fluorinated, fluorosilicones. As aliphatic fluorocarbons are usually introduced into polymers to lower surface tension, it is unexpected that the surface tension of PMTFPS is higher than PDMS. However, this observation is consistent with Zisman's early extensive studies. It is also somewhat surprising that there are no definitive values accepted for the water contact angle with PDMS and the interfacial tension at the PDMS/water interface. Some reasons for this are explored and relevant limitations considered. The variety of ways in which a PDMS surface can be presented must have a major effect on the range of water contact angles reported.

Prediction of the Wetting Behavior of Active and Hole-Transport Layers for Printed Flexible Electronic Devices Using Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used to predict the wetting behavior of materials typical of active and hole-transport layers in organic electronics by evaluating their contact angles and adhesion energies. The active layer (AL) here consists of a blend of poly(3-hexylthiophene) and phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM), whereas the hole-transport layer (HTL) consists of a blend of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) and poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). Simulations of the wetting of these surfaces by multiple solvents show that formamide, glycerol, and water droplet contact angle trends correlate with experimental values. However, droplet simulations on surfaces are computationally expensive and would be impractical for routine use in printed electronics and other applications. As an alternative, contact angle measurements can be related to adhesion energy, which can be calculated more quickly and easily from simulations and has been shown to correlate with contact angles. Calculations of adhesion energy for 16 different solvents were used to rapidly predict the wetting behavior of solvents on the AL and HTL surfaces. Among the tested solvents, pentane and hexane exhibit low and similar adhesion energy on both of the surfaces considered. This result suggests that among the tested solvents, pentane and hexane exhibit strong potential as orthogonal solvent in printing electronic materials onto HTL and AL materials. The simulation results further show that MD can accelerate the evaluation of processing parameters for printed electronics.

Three-phase contact line and line tension of electrolyte solutions in contact with charged substrates

The three-phase contact line formed by the intersection of a liquid-vapor interface of an electrolyte solution with a charged planar substrate is studied in terms of classical density functional theory applied to a lattice model. The influence of the substrate charge density and of the ionic strength of the solution on the intrinsic structure of the three-phase contact line and on the corresponding line tension is analyzed. We find a negative line tension for all values of the surface charge density and of the ionic strength considered. The strength of the line tension decreases upon decreasing the contact angle via varying either the temperature or the substrate charge density.

Interfacial properties of oxidized polystyrene and its interaction with water

All-atom molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to study the wetting of atactic polystyrene (aPS) thin films by water droplets. The effect of oxidation of the aPS surface on the contact angle has been studied as a function of oxygen concentration. Oxidation of aPS has been achieved by randomly replacing with oxygen the ortho and/or meta hydrogens on the aromatic rings within 1 nm of the aPS surface until the desired concentration of oxygen is reached. The simulated contact angle is found to decrease monotonically with increasing degree of oxidation, consistent with recent experimental results. The number of hydrogen bonds between water molecules and polystyrene at the interface is found to monotonically increase with oxygen concentration. By use of a modified Good-Girafalco-Fowkes-Young equation, the contribution of nondispersion interactions, γsl(P), to the interfacial energy at the aPS/water interface has been determined as a function of the degree of oxidation. The values of γsl(P) extracted appear to follow a quadratic dependence on oxygen concentration of the aPS surface. The roughness of the polystyrene surface appears to be independent of oxygen concentration when the polystyrene is exposed to vacuum, and it appears to increase slightly when it is in contact with water. The orientational ordering of the phenyl rings at the polystyrene surface exhibits no dependence on oxygen concentration for polystyrene in vacuum. However, the ordering appears to decrease slightly with increasing oxygen concentration when the polystyrene is in contact with water.

Dynamics of nanoscale droplets on moving surfaces

We use molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the dynamic wetting of nanoscale water droplets on moving surfaces. The density and hydrogen bonding profiles along the direction normal to the surface are reported, and the width of the water depletion layer is evaluated first for droplets on three different static surfaces: silicon, graphite, and a fictitious superhydrophobic surface. The advancing and receding contact angles, and contact angle hysteresis, are then measured as a function of capillary number on smooth moving silicon and graphite surfaces. Our results for the silicon surface show that molecular displacements at the contact line are influenced greatly by interactions with the solid surface and partly by viscous dissipation effects induced through the movement of the surface. For the graphite surface, however, both the advancing and receding contact angles values are close to the static contact angle value and are independent of the capillary number; i.e., viscous dissipation effects are negligible. This finding is in contrast with the wetting dynamics of macroscale water droplets, which show significant dependence on the capillary number.

Understanding the self-healing hydrophobic recovery of high-voltage insulators

Amorphous siloxane polymers are designed to have high dielectric strength for use as high-voltage insulation materials. Surface hydrophobicity is essential and can be impaired by environmental, electrical, or mechanical factors, leading to leakage currents due to dielectric breakdown. Self-recovery is possible and is generally observed over a period of several hours. Using large-scale, all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, the surface wetting of water droplets on the polymer surface is simulated for various surface conditions, including oxidation and coating with small molecules, to understand the driving forces of the recovery process at the atomistic level, which is of primary importance for the developments of novel materials. In this work, we shed light onto the self-recovery mechanism and propose the use of low-molecular-weight (LMW) siloxane to accelerate the recovery of hydrophobicity.

Hydrogen-bond structure at the interfaces between water/poly(methyl methacrylate), water/poly(methacrylic acid), and water/poly(2-aminoethylmethacrylamide)

The molecular dynamics approach was employed to study the structural characteristics at the interface of water/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), water/poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA), and poly(2-aminoethylmethacrylamide) (PAEMA). It is found that the water on the PMAA surface shows a significant increase in the density at the interface, with a greater number of water molecules permeating into the bulk of the substrate region. The structure of hydrogen bonds of water and the radial distribution function for given polar atoms in the polymer substrate are calculated. We found that a network structure of hydrogen bonding between water and the polar atom of the polymer forms at the interface. PMAA exhibits a more hydrophilic property than PMMA and PAEMA because it generates a shell-like structure of water molecules around its functional group. Finally, the hydrogen bond numbers of PMMA, PMAA, and PAEMA are also analyzed. The results detail the hydrogen bond structure of each specific atom and find that, in all three cases, the carboxyl oxygen attracts the greatest number of water molecules compared with other atoms.

Dynamical property of water droplets of different sizes adsorbed onto a poly(methyl methacrylate) surface

A molecular dynamics approach has been employed to study the dynamical behavior of a water droplet adsorbed on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) surface. Several sizes of water droplets are considered in order to understand the size influence of the droplet on the dynamical properties of water molecules on the PMMA substrate. The local density profile of water molecules in the droplet upon impact with the PMMA surface is calculated, and the result shows an increase in water penetration with a decrease in the size of the droplet. By examining the velocity field, the regular motion of the water droplet is found both during the equilibrium process and after the droplet reaches the equilibrium state. The dynamical behavior of water molecule is studied by the velocity autocorrelation function (VACF) in different regions for different sizes of water droplets. The result shows that VACFs in different regions are significantly influenced for the droplet with 500 water molecules than for that with 2000 water molecules. Calculations in different regions are made for the vibrational spectrum of the oxygen atom, as well as for hydrogen bond dynamics, the lifetime, and the relaxation time of the hydrogen bond. The changes in the hydrogen bond dynamics are consistent with the change in the distribution of the hydrogen bond angle. We conclude that the dynamical properties of the water molecule are significantly affected by the region relative to the surface but only weakly influenced by the size of the droplet.

Hydrophobic-induced Surface Reorganization: Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Water Nanodroplet on Perfluorocarbon Self-Assembled Monolayers

We carried out molecular dynamics simulations of water droplets on self-assembled monolayers of perfluorocarbon molecules. The interactions between the water droplet and the hydrophobic fluorocarbon surface were studied by systematically changing the molecular surface coverage and the mobility of the tethered head groups of the surface chain molecules. The microscopic contact angles were determined for different fluorocarbon surface densities. The contact angle at a nanometer length scale does not show a large change with the surface density. The structure of the droplets was studied by looking at the water density profiles and water penetration near the hydrophobic surface. At surface densities near close packed coverage of fluorocarbons, the water density shows an oscillating pattern near the boundary with a robust layered structure. As the surface density decreased and more water molecules penetrated into the fluorocarbon surface, the ordering of the water molecules at the boundary became less pronounced and the layered density structure became diffuse. The water droplet is found to induce the interfacial surface molecules to rearrange and form unique topological structures that minimize the unfavorable water-surface contacts. The local density of the fluorocarbon molecules right below the water droplet is measured to be higher than the density outside the droplet. The density difference increases as the overall surface density decreases. Two different surface morphologies emerge from the water-induced surface reorganization over the range of surface coverage explored in the study. For surface densities near closed packed monolayer coverage, the height of the fluorocarbons is maximum at the center of the droplet and minimum at the water-vapor-surface triple junction, generating a convex surface morphology under the droplet. For lower surface densities, on the other hand, the height of the fluorocarbon surface becomes maximal at and right outside the water-vapor-surface contact line and decreases quickly towards the center of the droplet, forming a concave shape of the surface. The interplay between the fluorocarbon packing and the water molecules is found to have profound consequences in many aspects of surface-water interactions, including water depletion and penetration, hydrogen bonding, and surface morphologies.