Adhesion characteristics of solution treated environmental dust

Johnny Ebaika Adukwu,Abba Abdulhamid Abubakar,Bekir Sami Yilbas,H Al-Qahtani,Almaz S Jalilov,Mubarak Yaqubu,Mazen Khaled

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-70858-6

Abstract

Environmental dust is modified towards self-cleaning applications under the gravitational influence. Dust particles are collected in the local area of Dammam in Saudi Arabia and they are treated with a dilute hydrofluoric acid solution. The changes in chemical and adhesion characteristics of the dust particles prior and after the solution treatment are analyzed. Force of adhesion and work required to remove dust from hydrophobic and hydrophilic glass surfaces are assessed, separately, for solution treated and collected dust. We show that aqueous hydrofluoric acid solution treatment modifies some dust components while causing the formation of submicron cracks and nano/submicron porous/pillars like textures on the dust particles. The texture generated on dust surfaces after the solution treatment has a great influence on dust adhesion characteristics. Hence, the solution treated dust particles result in lower adhesion on hydrophobic and hydrophilic glass surfaces as compared to that of untreated dust. The gravitational force enables to remove solution treated dust from inclined glass surfaces, which becomes more apparent for hydrophobic surfaces.

Highlights

Environmental dust is modified towards self-cleaning applications under the gravitational influence
The dust particles are collected from the Dammam area of Saudi Arabia and a low concentration hydrofluoric acid solution (30% HF and 70% water mixture) is used to treat the dust particles
The findings demonstrate that environmental dust possesses various elements and compounds and some of these compounds do not satisfy the stoichiometric elemental ratio while causing cationic/anionic forces on the dust surface

Summary

Introduction

Environmental dust is modified towards self-cleaning applications under the gravitational influence. The adhesion work resulted during the removal of untreated and solution treated dust particles from the hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces is evaluated.

Results

Conclusion