Liquid-Infused Microgrooved Slippery Surface Ablated by One-Step Laser Irradiation for Underwater Bubble Directional Manipulation and Anisotropic Spreading.

Wei Liu,Yunlong Jiao,Xuehui Chen

doi:10.3390/mi12050555

Wei Liu, Yunlong Jiao + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12050555

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Abstract

A pitcher plant is a kind of liquid-infused porous surface that imparts an excellent directional manipulation ability to in-air droplets or underwater bubbles, so it has attracted researchers’ attention in both academic and industrial issues. In this work, a kind of liquid-infused anisotropic microgrooved slippery surface (LIAMSS) was fabricated through one-step femtosecond laser irradiation and lubricant coating technology. On the inclined LIAMSS, the underwater bubbles show great directional motion and anisotropic spreading ability under the effect of buoyancy. It should be noted that the interaction between the air and the lubricant layer plays a dominant role in determining the attachment and the movement of the underwater bubble, which could be ascribed to the competition between the adhesion resistance induced by contact angle hysteresis and the drive force induced by buoyancy. Additionally, the bubble shows obvious anisotropy on the LIAMSS with the increase in volume because of the restriction of the slippery area, and the bubble contact angle perpendicular to the grooved region is about 88○ when the bubble volume is 5 μL. We believe that the present findings would accelerate the application of this kind of bubble slippery surface in underwater gas collection and tail gas treatment.

Highlights

It is worth noting that the mechanism of bubble directional transmission is mainly related to the competition between the driven force induced by the underwater buoyancy and the resistance force induced by the contact angle hysteresis
In order to explore the influence of bubble volume and slippery area width on bubble anisotropic spreading, we performed some quantitative experiments to measure the variation in bubble contact angle (BCA) under different bubble volumes and groove widths (Figure 6)
On the basis of this liquid-infused anisotropic microgrooved slippery surface (LIAMSS), we manipulated underwater bubbles in a directional path, and we found that the bubbles show an anisotropic spreading behavior when on it

Summary

Introduction

Combined with FLAT and liquid-infused lubrication technology, we fabricate a kind of liquid-infused anisotropic microgrooved slippery surface (LIAMSS) to achieve the precise manipulation of underwater bubbles in a restricted region. It is worth noting that the mechanism of bubble directional transmission is mainly related to the competition between the driven force induced by the underwater buoyancy and the resistance force induced by the contact angle hysteresis. Due to the influence of bubble volume, the underwater buoyancy of the bubbles is different, so the bubble starts to move when the rotating angle of the slippery surface increases to the critical sliding angle.

Results

Conclusion