Suppression of crystallization in saline drop evaporation on pinning-free surfaces
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For sessile droplets of pure liquid on a surface, evaporation depends on surface wettability, the surrounding environment, contact angle hysteresis, and surface roughness. For non-pure liquids, the evaporation characteristics are further complicated by the constituents and impurities within the droplet. For saline solutions, this complication takes the form of a modified partial vapor pressure/water activity caused by the increasing salt concentration as the aqueous solvent evaporates. It is generally thought that droplets on surfaces will crystallize when the saturation concentration is reached, i.e., 26.3% for NaCl in water. This crystallization is initiated by contact with the surface and is thus due to surface roughness and heterogeneities. Recently, smooth, low contact angle hysteresis surfaces have been created by molecular grafting of polymer chains. In this work, we hypothesize that by using these very smooth surfaces to evaporate saline droplets, we can suppress the crystallization caused by the surface interactions and thus achieve constant volume droplets above the saturation concentration. In our experiments, we used several different surfaces to examine the possibility of crystallization suppression. We show that on polymer grafted surfaces, i.e., Slippery Omniphobic Covalently Attached Liquid-like (SOCAL) and polyethyleneglycol(PEGylated) surfaces, we can achieve stable droplets as low as 55% relative humidity at 25 °C with high reproducibility using NaCl in water solutions. We also show that it is possible to achieve stable droplets above the saturation concentration on other surfaces, including superhydrophobic surfaces. We present an analytical model, based on water activity, which accurately describes the final stable volume as a function of the initial salt concentration. These findings are important for heat and mass transfer in relatively low humidity environments.Keywords:
Saturation (graph theory)
Surface wettability is one of the crucial characteristics for determining of a material’s use in specific application. Determination of wettability is based on the measurement of the material surface contact angle. Contact angle is the main parameter that characterizes the drop shape on the solid surface and is also one of the directly measurable properties of the phase interface. In this chapter, the wettability and its related properties of pristine and modified polymer foils will be described. The wettability depends on surface roughness and chemical composition. Changes of these parameters can adjust the values of contact angle and, therefore, wettability. In the case of pristine polymer materials, their wettability is unsuitable for a wide range of applications (such as tissue engineering, printing, and coating). Polymer surfaces can easily be modified by, e.g., plasma discharge, whereas the bulk properties remain unchanged. This modification leads to oxidation of the treated layer and creation of new chemical groups that mainly contain oxygen. Immediately after plasma treatment, the values of the contact angles of the modified polymer significantly decrease. In the case of a specific polymer, the strongly hydrophilic surface is created and leads to total spreading of the water drop. Wettability is strongly dependent on time from modification.
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Abstract The wetting and evaporation behaviors of water–ethanol mixtures on polished poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) surfaces were studied with an emphasis on the influence of concentration. Three representative stages: (i) constant contact diameter with decreasing contact angle and drop height; (ii) increase in contact angle and drop height with decreasing contact diameter; and (iii) simultaneous decrease in contact angle, drop height, and contact diameter, were identified in the wetting process under evaporation. In the initial stage, with increasing ethanol concentration, the wetting and evaporating behaviors of the mixture drops are close to those of pure ethanol, while in the final stage they are close to those of pure water, regardless of the concentration. The most significant difference between the pure substance and mixture drops is in the intermediate stage due to the different controlling mechanisms behind the de‐pinning phenomenon. Moreover, the concrete wetting behavior is dependent on the composition of the mixture drops. For an evaporating sessile drop, the wetting should be evaluated using the combined parameters of contact angle, drop height, and contact diameter. Six representative modes are proposed to describe the wetting behaviors of the water–ethanol sessile drops on the PTFE surfaces under evaporation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Wetting transition
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Solid surface
Wetting transition
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Surface active agents (surfactants) are commonly used to improve the wetting of aqueous solutions on hydrophobic surfaces. The improved wettability is usually quantified as a decrease of the contact angle θ of a droplet on the surface, where the contact angle θ is given by the three surface tensions involved. Surfactants are known to lower the liquid-vapor surface tension, but what they do to the two other surface tensions is less clear. We propose an improved Zisman method for quantifying the wetting behavior of surfactants at the solid surface. This allows us to show that a number of very common surfactants do not change the wettability of the solid: they give the same contact angle as a simple liquid with the same liquid-vapor surface tension. Surface-specific sum-frequency generation spectroscopy shows that nonetheless surfactants are present at the solid surface. The surfactants therefore change the solid-liquid and solid-vapor surface tensions by the same amount, leading to an unchanged contact angle.
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Wetting transition
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Wettability has been explored for 100 years since it is described by Young’s equation in 1805. It is all known that hydrophilicity means contact angle (θ), θ < 90°; hydrophobicity means contact angle (θ), θ > 90°. The utilization of both hydrophilic surfaces and hydrophobic surfaces has also been achieved in both academic and practical perspectives. In order to understand the wettability of a droplet distributed on the textured surfaces, the relevant models are reviewed along with understanding the formation of contact angle and how it is affected by the roughness of the textured surface aiming to obtain the required surface without considering whether the original material is hydrophilic or hydrophobic.
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In nucleate and transition boiling, the wettability of a heated surface plays an important role. Up to now, the contact angle has been a common measure of surface wettability. But because of contact angle hysteresis, measuring it from the shape of a liquid droplet on a horizontal solid surface may have almost no meaning. In this study, the hysteresis is studied theoretically and effects of surface energetics, roughness and temperature on wettability are investigated experimentally by measuring contact angle under various conditions. As a result, a new measure of solid surface wettability is proposed.
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Effects of low-frequency Ar,N_2 RF-plasma on wettability of medical stainless steel were studied in details. Wettability of EVAL solution, the morphology and bonding strength of EVAL coating on the stainless steel with and without plasma pretreatment were investigated. The correlation of surface wettability with surface free energy and surface structure was also established. Wettability was measured by contact angles of water droplet on the samples. Surface free energy (dispersive force and polar force) was calculated by contact angles of liquids whose surface tensions were known. Wettability of medical stainless steel after plasma pretreatment significantly increases and the optimum conditions of treatment are: N_2 gas plasma, bias voltage 100 V, time 10 min. Moreover, the uniformity, density and the bonding strength of EVAL coating on the stainless steel pretreated under the optimum condition are remarkably improved. Contact angle measurement results show that mainly because of the contribution of polar forces, the surface free energies of samples after plasma treatment are enhanced. ATR-FTIR, AFM, XPS results indicate that the modification of wettability and the increasing of surface free ~energy are due to surface cleaning, surface etching and surface activity.
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