Imbibition through an array of triangular posts

De-wetting of evaporating drops on regular patterns of triangular posts

Directional wicking and spreading of liquids can be achieved by regular micro-patterns of specifically designed topographic features that break the reflection symmetry of the underlying pattern. The present study aims to understand the formation and stability of wetting films during the evaporation of volatile liquid drops on surfaces with a micro-pattern of triangular posts arranged in a rectangular lattice. Depending on the density and aspect ratio of the posts, we observe either spherical-cap shaped drops with a mobile three-phase contact line or the formation of circular or angular drops with a pinned three-phase contact line. Drops of the latter class eventually evolve into a liquid film extending to the initial footprint of the drop and a shrinking cap-shaped drop sitting on the film. The drop evolution is controlled by the density and aspect ratio of the posts, while no influence of the orientation of the triangular posts on the contact line mobility becomes evident. Our experiments corroborate previous results of systematic numerical energy minimization, predicting that conditions for a spontaneous retraction of a wicking liquid film depend weakly on the orientation of the film edge relative to the micro-pattern.

Flow Boiling Enhancement Using Three-Dimensional Contact-Line Pinning on Hierarchical Superbiphilic Micro/Nanostructures

Flow boiling is a promising method for the cooling of sensitive computational and industrial components, facilitating the transportation of large quantities of heat at near-constant temperature and in a small form factor. The prevention of vapor film formation is a fundamental challenge for the enhancement of boiling systems, and an impetus therefore exists for the discovery of new techniques to segregate nucleating bubbles during their formation. Herein, we utilize the strong capillary forces generated by nanostructures to pin the liquid/vapor interface in three dimensions and thereby control the coalescence and flow interactions of developing bubbles. We demonstrate this principle on both symmetrical and asymmetrical superbiphilic microstructures, showing enhancement of peak heat transfer coefficient by 81% and 113%, respectively, when compared to the best superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic analogues. Our approach shows a potential future direction for engineered boiling micro/nanostructures, wherein bubble dynamics are directly manipulated on bespoke, three-dimensional substrates.

Elementary autonomous surface microfluidic devices based on laser-fabricated wetting gradient microtextures that drive directional water flows

Topography-dependent tuning of water wettability was achieved on a stainless steel surface textured by nanosecond-laser pulses at different laser fluences, with the minimal contribution of the surface chemical modification. Such differently-wet neighboring surface spots were demonstrated to drive an autonomous directional water flow. A series of elementary microfluidic devices based on the spatial wetting gradients were designed and tested as building blocks of "green", energy-saving autonomous microfluidic circuits.

Surface-Tension-Confined Channel with Biomimetic Microstructures for Unidirectional Liquid Spreading

Unidirectional liquid spreading without energy input is of significant interest for the broad applications in diverse fields such as water harvesting, drop transfer, oil-water separation and microfluidic devices. However, the controllability of liquid motion and the simplification of manufacturing process remain challenges. Inspired by the peristome of Nepenthes alata, a surface-tension-confined (STC) channel with biomimetic microcavities was fabricated facilely through UV exposure photolithography and partial plasma treatment. Perfect asymmetric liquid spreading was achieved by combination of microcavities and hydrophobic boundary, and the stability of pinning effect was demonstrated. The influences of structural features of microcavities on both liquid spreading and liquid pinning were investigated and the underlying mechanism was revealed. We also demonstrated the spontaneous unidirectional transport of liquid in 3D space and on tilting slope. In addition, through changing pits arrangement and wettability pattern, complex liquid motion paths and microreactors were realized. This work will open a new way for liquid manipulation and lab-on-chip applications.

Critical Pressure Asymmetry in the Enclosed Fluid Diode

Joint physically and chemically pattered surfaces can provide efficient and passive manipulation of fluid flow. The ability of many of these surfaces to allow only unidirectional flow means they are often termed fluid diodes. Synthetic analogues of these are enabling technologies from sustainable water collection via fog harvesting to improved wound dressings. One key fluid diode geometry features a pore sandwiched between two absorbent substrates-an important design for applications that require liquid capture while preventing back-flow. However, the enclosed pore is particularly challenging to design as an effective fluid diode due to the need for both a low Laplace pressure for liquid entering the pore and a high Laplace pressure to liquid leaving. Here, we calculate the Laplace pressure for fluid traveling in both directions on a range of conical pore designs with a chemical gradient. We show that this chemical gradient is in general required to achieve the largest critical pressure differences between incoming and outgoing liquids. Finally, we discuss the optimization strategy to maximize this critical pressure asymmetry.

Directional Liquid Wicking in Regular Arrays of Triangular Posts

Wicking of wetting liquids into micropatterns of posts with homogeneous triangular cross section is studied in experiments and by numerical energy minimizations. To test for directional wicking, we fabricated regular arrays of posts with various combinations of line fractions and aspect ratios using standard photolithography processes. In agreement with numerical energy minimizations of the liquid film morphology, we find spontaneous wicking in the experiments only for line fractions and aspect ratios where the homogeneous liquid film represents the state of lowest interfacial free energy and where no local energy minimum could be detected in our numerical energy minimizations. The numerical results further demonstrate that the stability of a certain morphology of the terminal meniscus controls the direction of wicking relative to the orientation of the triangular posts. The observed selectivity of spontaneous wicking with respect to the meniscus orientation can be exploited to build a microfluidic rectifier for partially wetting liquids.

Passive water collection with the integument: mechanisms and their biomimetic potential

Several mechanisms of water acquisition have evolved in animals living in arid habitats to cope with limited water supply. They enable access to water sources such as rain, dew, thermally facilitated condensation on the skin, fog, or moisture from a damp substrate. This Review describes how a significant number of animals - in excess of 39 species from 24 genera - have acquired the ability to passively collect water with their integument. This ability results from chemical and structural properties of the integument, which, in each species, facilitate one or more of six basic mechanisms: increased surface wettability, increased spreading area, transport of water over relatively large distances, accumulation and storage of collected water, condensation, and utilization of gravity. Details are described for each basic mechanism. The potential for bio-inspired improvement of technical applications has been demonstrated in many cases, in particular for several wetting phenomena, fog collection and passive, directional transport of liquids. Also considered here are potential applications in the fields of water supply, lubrication, heat exchangers, microfluidics and hygiene products. These present opportunities for innovations, not only in product functionality, but also for fabrication processes, where resources and environmental impact can be reduced.

Dynamics of Capillary-Driven Flow in 3D Printed Open Microchannels

Microchannels have applications in microfluidic devices, patterns for micromolding, and even flexible electronic devices. Three-dimensional (3D) printing presents a promising alternative manufacturing route for these microchannels due to the technology's relative speed and the design freedom it affords its users. However, the roughness of 3D printed surfaces can significantly influence flow dynamics inside of a microchannel. In this work, open microchannels are fabricated using four different 3D printing techniques: fused deposition modeling (FDM), stereolithography (SLA), selective laser sintering, and multi jet modeling. Microchannels printed with each technology are evaluated with respect to their surface roughness, morphology, and how conducive they are to spontaneous capillary filling. Based on this initial assessment, microchannels printed with FDM and SLA are chosen as models to study spontaneous, capillary-driven flow dynamics in 3D printed microchannels. Flow dynamics are investigated over short (∼10^-3 s), intermediate (∼1 s), and long (∼10² s) time scales. Surface roughness causes a start-stop motion down the channel due to contact line pinning, while the cross-sectional shape imparted onto the channels during the printing process is shown to reduce the expected filling velocity. A significant delay in the onset of Lucas-Washburn dynamics (a long-time equilibrium state where meniscus position advances proportionally to the square root of time) is also observed. Flow dynamics are assessed as a function of printing technology, print orientation, channel dimensions, and liquid properties. This study provides the first in-depth investigation of the effect of 3D printing on microchannel flow dynamics as well as a set of rules on how to account for these effects in practice. The extension of these effects to closed microchannels and microchannels fabricated with other 3D printing technologies is also discussed.

Bioinspired polymer microstructures for directional transport of oily liquids

Nature has always served as an inspiration for scientists, helping them to solve a large diversity of technical problems. In our case, we are interested in the directional transport of oily liquids and as a model for this application we used the flat bug Dysodius lunatus. In this report, we present arrays of drops looking like polymer microstructures produced by the two-photon polymerization technique that mimic the micro-ornamentation from the bug's cuticle. A good directionality of oil transport was achieved, directly controlled by the direction of the pointed microstructures at the surface. If the tips of the drop-like microstructures are pointing towards the left side, the liquid front moves to the right and vice versa. Similar effects could be expected for the transport of oily lubricants. These results could, therefore, be interesting for applications in friction and wear reduction.

Three-gradient regular solution model for simple liquids wetting complex surface topologies

We use regular solution theory and implement a three-gradient model for a liquid/vapour system in contact with a complex surface topology to study the shape of a liquid drop in advancing and receding wetting scenarios. More specifically, we study droplets on an inverse opal: spherical cavities in a hexagonal pattern. In line with experimental data, we find that the surface may switch from hydrophilic (contact angle on a smooth surface θ_Y < 90°) to hydrophobic (effective advancing contact angle θ > 90°). Both the Wenzel wetting state, that is cavities under the liquid are filled, as well as the Cassie-Baxter wetting state, that is air entrapment in the cavities under the liquid, were observed using our approach, without a discontinuity in the water front shape or in the water advancing contact angle θ. Therefore, air entrapment cannot be the main reason why the contact angle θ for an advancing water front varies. Rather, the contact line is pinned and curved due to the surface structures, inducing curvature perpendicular to the plane in which the contact angle θ is observed, and the contact line does not move in a continuous way, but via depinning transitions. The pinning is not limited to kinks in the surface with angles θ_kink smaller than the angle θ_Y. Even for θ_kink > θ_Y, contact line pinning is found. Therefore, the full 3D-structure of the inverse opal, rather than a simple parameter such as the wetting state or θ_kink, determines the final observed contact angle.

Capillary rise on legs of a small animal and on artificially textured surfaces mimicking them

The wharf roach Ligia exotica is a small animal that lives by the sea and absorbs water from the sea through its legs by virtue of a remarkable array of small blades of micron scale. We find that the imbibition dynamics on the legs is rather complex on a microscopic scale, but on a macroscopic scale the imbibition length seems to simply scale linearly with elapsed time. This unusual dynamics of imbibition, which usually slows down with time, is advantageous for long-distance water transport and results from repetition of unit dynamics. Inspired by the remarkable features, we study artificially textured surfaces mimicking the structure on the legs of the animal. Unlike the case of the wharf roach, the linear dynamics were not reproduced on the artificial surfaces, which may result from more subtle features on the real legs that are not faithfully reflected on the artificial surfaces. Instead, the nonlinear dynamics revealed that hybrid structures on the artificial surfaces speed up the water transport compared with non-hybrid ones. In addition, the dynamics on the artificial surfaces turn out to be well described by a composite theory developed here, with the theory giving useful guiding principles for designing hybrid textured surfaces for rapid imbibition and elucidating physical advantages of the microscopic design on the legs.

Lattice Boltzmann modeling of directional wetting: comparing simulations to experiments

Lattice Boltzmann Modeling (LBM) simulations were performed on the dynamic behavior of liquid droplets on chemically striped patterned surfaces, ultimately with the aim to develop a predictive tool enabling reliable design of future experiments. The simulations accurately mimic experimental results, which have shown that water droplets on such surfaces adopt an elongated shape due to anisotropic preferential spreading. Details of the contact line motion such as advancing of the contact line in the direction perpendicular to the stripes exhibit pronounced similarities in experiments and simulations. The opposite of spreading, i.e., evaporation of water droplets, leads to a characteristic receding motion first in the direction parallel to the stripes, while the contact line remains pinned perpendicular to the stripes. Only when the aspect ratio is close to unity, the contact line also starts to recede in the perpendicular direction. Very similar behavior was observed in the LBM simulations. Finally, droplet movement can be induced by a gradient in surface wettability. LBM simulations show good semiquantitative agreement with experimental results of decanol droplets on a well-defined striped gradient, which move from high- to low-contact angle surfaces. Similarities and differences for all systems are described and discussed in terms of the predictive capabilities of LBM simulations to model direction wetting.

One-way wicking in open micro-channels controlled by channel topography

One-way wicking (microfluidic diode) behaviors of a range of IPA-water mixtures on internally structured PDMS-based open micro-channels were experimentally demonstrated and quantified. The open microfluidic channels, each internally decorated with an array of angled fin-like-structure pairs, were fabricated using a combined photolithography and soft molding procedure. Propagations of wetting fluids were found to be much more impeded on the fin-tilting direction, or the hard wicking direction, comparing to the opposite direction, or the easy wicking direction. This asymmetric wicking behaviors were attributed to the structure-induced direction-dependent Laplace pressure. Two key parameters - the contact angle of the wicking fluid and the tilting angle of the fin-like structures - were studied. The effects of preferential evaporation and wetting instability were also investigated. The findings of this study are expected to provide a better understanding of how fluids interact with micro-scaled structures and to offer a new way of manipulating fluids at the micron and nanometer scales.

Imbibition of a textured surface decorated by short pillars with rounded edges

Imbibition of micropatterned surfaces can have broad technological and fundamental implications for areas ranging from biomedical devices and fuel transport to writing with ink. Despite rapidly growing interests aimed at various applications, a fundamental physical understanding of the imbibition dynamics is still in its infancy. Recently, two simple scaling regimes for the dynamics have been established for a textured surface decorated with long pillars whose top and bottom edges are sharp. Here, we study the imbibition dynamics of textured surfaces decorated by short pillars with rounded edges, to find a different scaling regime. Interestingly, this regime originates not from the balance of two effects but from the hybrid balance of three effects. Furthermore, this scaling law can be universal or independent of the details of the texture geometry. We envision that this potentially universal scaling regime might be ubiquitous and will be useful in the handling and transportation of a small amount of liquid.

Bioinspired Directional Surfaces for Adhesion, Wetting and Transport

In Nature, directional surfaces on insect cuticle, animal fur, bird feathers, and plant leaves are comprised of dual micro-nanoscale features that tune roughness and surface energy. This feature article summarizes experimental and theoretical approaches for the design, synthesis and characterization of new bioinspired surfaces demonstrating unidirectional surface properties. The experimental approaches focus on bottom-up and top-down synthesis methods of unidirectional micro- and nanoscale films to explore and characterize their anomalous features. The theoretical component of the review focuses on computational tools to predict the physicochemical properties of unidirectional surfaces.

Partial-post Laplace barriers for virtual confinement, stable displacement, and >5 cm s(-1) electrowetting transport

Laplace barriers composed of full-posts or ridges have been previously reported as a mechanism for virtual fluid confinement, but with unstable displacement (capillary fingering or fluid trapping, respectively). A new platform of 'partial-posts' eliminates the disadvantages of full-posts or ridges, while providing ~60-80% open channel area for rapid electrowetting fluid transport (>5 cm s(-1)). The fluid mechanics of partial-post Laplace barriers are far more complex than previous Laplace barriers as it involves two mechanisms: fluid can first begin to propagate either between, or under, the partial-posts. Careful design of channel and partial-post geometries is required, else one mechanism will dominate over the other. The physics and performance of partial-post Laplace barriers are verified using theoretical equations, experimental results, and dynamic numerical modeling.

Anisotropic imbibition on surfaces patterned with polygonal posts

We present and interpret lattice Boltzmann simulations of thick films spreading on surfaces patterned with polygonal posts. We show that the mechanism of pinning and depinning differs with the direction of advance, and demonstrate that this leads to anisotropic spreading within a certain range of material contact angles.

Imbibition of solids in nanopillar arrays

The imbibition of a solid island on a substrate with a square array of pillars is studied by means of kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Imbibition is found to occur via an intermediate state where an island sits on the film. Two dynamical regimes are identified depending on the geometry of the substrate: a stochastic regime, where the dynamics are controlled by the nucleation-limited motion of the imbibition front across the array of pillars, and a deterministic regime limited by the diffusion of atoms on top of the imbibition film.