Review of non-reactive and reactive wetting of liquids on surfaces.

Review of drop impact on heated walls

Attempts at depositing uniform films of nanoparticles by drop-drying have been frustrated by the "coffee-stain" effect due to convective macroscopic flow into the contact line. Here, we show that uniform deposition of nanoparticles in aqueous suspensions can be attained easily by drying the droplet in an ethanol vapor atmosphere. This technique allows the particle-laden water droplets to spread on a variety of surfaces such as glass, silicon, mica, PDMS, and even Teflon. Visualization of droplet shape and internal flow shows initial droplet spreading and strong recirculating flow during spreading and shrinkage. The initial spreading is due to a diminishing contact angle from the absorption of ethanol from the vapor at the contact line. During the drying phase, the vapor is saturated in ethanol, leading to preferential evaporation of water at the contact line. This generates a surface tension gradient that drives a strong recirculating flow and homogenizes the nanoparticle concentration. We show that this method can be used for depositing catalyst nanoparticles for the growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes as well as to manufacture plasmonic films of well-spaced, unaggregated gold nanoparticles.

Overcoming the "coffee-stain" effect by compositional Marangoni-flow-assisted drop-drying.

Evaporation dynamics of small sessile water droplets under microgravity conditions is investigated numerically. The water-air interface is free, and the surrounding air is assumed to be quasisteady. The droplet is described by Navier-Stokes and heat equations and its surrounding water/air gaseous phase with Laplace equation. In the thermodynamic conditions of the simulations presented herein, the evaporative mass flow is nonlinear. It shows a minimum that indicates the existence of qualitative changes in the evaporative regimes although the droplet is sessile. Due to temperature gradients on the free interface, Marangoni motion occurs and generates inside the droplet convection cells that furthermore exhibit small fluctuating motion as evaporation goes on.

Evaporation and Marangoni driven convection in small heated water droplets.

We describe an experimental investigation of the concomitant evaporation and (de)wetting behavior of sessile drops of ethanol, either pure, or containing small amounts of titanium oxide nanoparticles. Pure ethanol behaved in a more or less “ideal” manner, with constantly decreasing contact radius, at essentially constant contact angle. However, distinct “stick−slip” pinning behavior of the triple line occurred when nanoparticles were added to the base liquid. Increased nanoparticle concentration enhanced the “stick−slip” behavior. The observed behavior is attributed to the effects of particle accumulation near the contact line, caused by the now-established advective flow during evaporation. “Slip” behavior can be explained by hysteretic energy barriers, somewhat akin to line tension. The “stick” behavior was not complete: some triple line drift occurred (“pseudo-pinning”). It is postulated that this may be due to small-scale pinning of the triple line by deposited particles, or to increased effective vis...

M. Douglas

Papers

Experimental study of evaporating water-ethanol mixture sessile drop: influence of concentration