Cunjing Lv — Page 2

arXiv2010

Surface Curvature-Induced Directional Movement of Water Droplets

Here we report a surface curvature-induced directional movement phenomenon, based on molecular dynamics simulations, that a nanoscale water droplet at the outer surface of a graphene cone always spontaneously moves toward the larger end of the cone, and at the inner surface toward the smaller end. The analysis on the van der Waals interaction potential between a single water molecule and a curved graphene surface reveals that the curvature with its gradient does generate the driving force resulting in the above directional motion. Furthermore, we found that the direction of the above movement is independent of the wettability, namely is regardless of either hydrophobic or hydrophilic of the surface. However, the latter surface is in general leading to higher motion speed than the former. The above results provide a basis for a better understanding of many reported observations, and helping design of curved surfaces with desired directional surface water transportation.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2010

Small is beautiful, and dry

Thousands of plant and animal species have been observed to have superhydrophobic surfaces that lead to various novel behaviors [1-5]. These observations have inspired attempts to create artificial superhydrophobic surfaces, given such surfaces have multitudinous applications [6-13]. Superhydrophobicity is an enhanced effect of surface roughness and there are known relationships that correlate surface roughness and superhydrophobicity, based on the underlying physics. However, while these recognize the level of roughness they tell us little about the independent effect of its scale. Thus, they are not capable of explaining why naturally occurring such surfaces commonly have micron-submicron sizes. Here we report on the discovery of a new relation, its physical basis and its experimental verification. The results reveal that scaling-down roughness into the micro-submicron range is a unique and elegant strategy to not only achieve superhydrophobicity but also to increase its stability against environmental disturbances. This new relation takes into account the previously overlooked but key fact that the accumulated line energy arising from the numerous solid-water-air intersections that can be distributed in the apparent contact area when air packets are trapped at small scales on the surface can dramatically increase as the roughness scale shrinks. This term can in fact become the dominant contributor to the surface energy and so becomes crucial for accomplishing superhydrophobicity. These findings guide fabrication of stable super water-repellant surfaces.

cond-mat.soft↗