Formation Of Capillary Bridges Research Articles

Pollenkitt Wetting Mechanism Enables Species-Specific Tunable Pollen Adhesion

Plant pollens are microscopic particles exhibiting a remarkable breadth of complex solid surface features. In addition, many pollen grains are coated with a viscous liquid, "pollenkitt", thought to play important roles in pollen dispersion and adhesion. However, there exist no quantitative studies of the effects of solid surface features or pollenkitt on adhesion of pollen grains, and it remains unclear what role these features play in pollen adhesion and transport. We report AFM adhesion measurements of five pollen species with a series of test surfaces in which each pollen has a unique solid surface morphology and pollenkitt volume. The results indicate that the combination of surface morphology (size and shape of echinate or reticulate features) with the pollenkitt volume provides pollens with a remarkably tunable adhesion to surfaces. With pollenkitt removed, pollen grains had relatively low adhesion strengths that were independent of surface chemistry and scalable with the tip radius of the pollen's ornamentation features, according to the Hamaker model. With the pollenkitt intact, adhesion was up to 3-6 times higher than the dry grains and exhibited strong substrate dependence. The adhesion enhancing effect of pollenkitt was driven by the formation of pollenkitt capillary bridges and was surprisingly species-dependent, with echinate insect-pollinated species (dandelion and sunflower) showing significantly stronger adhesion and higher substrate dependence than wind-pollinated species (ragweed, poplar, and olive). The combination of high pollenkitt volume and large convex, spiny surface features in echinate entomophilous varieties appears to enhance the spreading area of the liquid pollenkitt relative to varieties of pollen with less pollenkitt volume and less pronounced surface features. Measurements of pollenkitt surface energy indicate that the adhesive strength of capillary bridges is primarily dependent on nonpolar van der Waals interactions, with some contribution from the Lewis basic component of surface energy.

An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Fracture Dip Angle on Oil Recovery and Drainage Rate in Free Fall Gravity Drainage in Fractured Reservoirs Using a Glass Micromodel (A Pore Level Investigation)

Gravity drainage is the main production mechanism in the gas invaded zone in naturally fractured reservoirs. However, there are large ambiguities and complexities, resulting from the dynamic of oil depletion from matrix blocks toward the fracture network. Visualization of drained oil at pore scale using glass micromodels provides the opportunity to better understand the effects of different parameters which might affect oil recovery from fractured reservoirs. In this work a micromodel apparatus generated by laser etching is used to perform some gravity drainage tests on the network patterns. The experiments were performed on double block systems using crude oil. The block to block interactions and the formation and changes of capillary bridges between matrix blocks were visually investigated. A suitable empirical model of gravity drainage is used for the prediction and evaluation of experimental data. The empirical model will be used for sensitivity analysis of fracture dip angle which might affect oil recovery efficiency and oil drainage rate, and as seen in experiments this parameter has a direct relationship to and positive effect on oil recovery. We also found the important rule of the block to block effect on the recovery of blocks and the higher recovery of upper matrix blocks than lower ones shows this reality; also it was claimed that the threshold height of fractured reservoir blocks doesn't show the true matrix capillary pressure of matrices, because of the block to block effect that helps the gravity forces in the matrix draining procedure. By increasing the block tilting angle up to α = 90 – tan – 1(y/x) as y and x are the 2-dimensional block sides lengths, the recovery of the block will increase but its initial drainage rate will decrease. It's a result of an increase in effective block height and increasing the capillary bridges stability which increases recovery, and the decrease of rate is due to capillary bridges frequency decreasing, which decreases the area open to flow.

The role of the hydrogen bond in dense nanoparticle–gas suspensions

The effect of surface characteristics on the interaction between nanoparticles and their agglomeration in dense gas suspensions is still not fully understood. It is known that when the surface is covered with hydroxyl groups, the interaction between nanoparticles becomes substantially stronger than in the absence of these groups; this strengthening is typically attributed to the formation of capillary bridges between the particles. However, this work shows that part of the increase of the interaction is due to the direct hydrogen bonds formed between the surfaces of the polar particles. Dry nitrogen was used to fluidize polar (hydrophilic) and apolar (hydrophobic) SiO2, TiO2 and Al2O3 particles, with a size ranging from 13 to 21 nm. The dry polar particles showed smaller bed expansion and larger minimum fluidization velocity compared to their apolar counterparts, indicating stronger interparticle forces. The results show the importance of including the formation of hydrogen bonds in the modeling of the interaction between dry and polar nanoparticles.

Experimental Study of Impulse Resuspension with Laser Doppler Vibrometry

Particle resuspension due to mechanical impulse was studied for spherical polymethylmethacrylate (pmma) particles ranging from 1.7 to 14.4 μm in diameter on titanium dioxide (TiO2) and silicon dioxide (SiO2) wafers. Dry powders were dispersed, electrostatically neutralized, and allowed to deposit under the influence of gravity. Contaminated surfaces were then mechanically excited with a 5 MHz piezoelectric transducer where surface accelerations (∼106 m/s2) and resuspension ratios were quantified with laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) and digital microscopy, respectively. For TiO2, experiments were performed over a broad range of relative humidity (25 to 95%) to assess the effects of capillary condensation. Resuspension was a monotonically decreasing function of relative humidity. Existing theories were used to separate data into two adhesion regimes based on capillary bridge formation: van der Waals (vdW) and capillary dominated adhesion. For relative humidity above 60%, resuspension forces were nondimension...

Formation and rupture of capillary bridges in atomic scale friction

While formation of capillary bridges significantly contributes to the adhesion and friction at micro- and nanoscales, many key aspects of dynamics of capillary condensation and its effect on friction forces are still not well understood. Here, by analytical model and numerical simulations, we address the origin of reduction of friction force with velocity and increase of friction with temperature, which have been experimentally observed under humid ambient conditions. These observations differ significantly from the results of friction experiments carried out under ultrahigh vacuum, and disagree with predictions of thermal Prandtl-Tomlinson model of friction. Our calculations demonstrate what information on the kinetics of capillary condensation can be extracted from measurements of friction forces and suggest optimal conditions for obtaining this information.

Effect of Surface Roughness and Softness on Water Capillary Adhesion in Apolar Media

The roughness and softness of interacting surfaces are both important parameters affecting the capillary condensation of water in apolar media, yet are poorly understood at present. We studied the water capillary adhesion between a cellulose surface and a silica colloidal probe in hexane by AFM force measurements. Nanomechanical measurements show that the Young's modulus of the cellulose layer in water is significantly less (~7 MPa) than in hexane (~7 GPa). In addition, the cellulose surface in both water and hexane is rather rough (6-10 nm) and the silica probe has a comparable roughness. The adhesion force between cellulose and silica in water-saturated hexane shows a time-dependent increase up to a waiting time of 200 s and is much (2 orders of magnitude) lower than that expected for a capillary bridge spanning the whole silica probe surface. This suggests the formation of one or more smaller bridges between asperities on both surfaces, which is confirmed by a theoretical analysis. The overall growth rate of the condensate cannot be explained from diffusion mediated capillary condensation alone; thin film flow due to the presence of a wetting layer of water at both the surfaces seems to be the dominant contribution. The logarithmic time dependence of the force can also be explained from the model of the formation of multiple capillary bridges with a distribution of activation times. Finally, the force-distance curves upon retraction show oscillations. Capillary condensation between an atomically smooth mica surface and the silica particle show less significant oscillations and the adhesion force is independent of waiting time. The oscillations in the force-distance curves between cellulose and silica may stem from multiple bridge formation between the asperities present on both surfaces. The softness of the cellulose surface can bring in additional complexities during retraction of the silica particle, also resulting in oscillations in the force-distance curves.

Adsorption, Capillary Bridge Formation, and Cavitation in SBA-15 Corrugated Mesopores: A Derjaguin–Broekhoff–de Boer Analysis

A Derjaguin-Broekhoff-de Boer analysis of adsorption and desorption in SBA-15 mesoporous silica is presented, using realistic geometrical models that account for the pore corrugation in these materials. The model parameters are derived from independent electron tomography and small-angle scattering characterization. A geometrical characteristic of the pore that is found to be important for adsorption is the corrugation length, l(C), which describes the longitudinal size of the geometrical defects along a given pore. Capillary bridges are possible only for large values of l(C). The results are explained in terms of two spinodal and two equilibrium pressures, characterizing the wide and the narrow sections of the pores. Simplified analytical expressions are obtained, which provide necessary conditions for bridge formation and for cavitation in terms of the radii of the narrow and wide sections of the pores, as well as of l(C). Quite generally, the results show that the deviation of the pore shape from that of ideal cylinders is key to understanding adsorption and desorption in corrugated mesopores, notably in SBA-15.

Spontaneous Formation of Stable Capillary Bridges for Firming Compact Colloidal Microstructures in Phase Separating Liquids: A Computational Study

Computer modeling and simulations are performed to investigate capillary bridges spontaneously formed between closely packed colloidal particles in phase separating liquids. The simulations reveal a self-stabilization mechanism that operates through diffusive equilibrium of two-phase liquid morphologies. Such mechanism renders desired microstructural stability and uniformity to the capillary bridges that are spontaneously formed during liquid solution phase separation. This self-stabilization behavior is in contrast to conventional coarsening processes during phase separation. The volume fraction limit of the separated liquid phases as well as the adhesion strength and thermodynamic stability of the capillary bridges are discussed. Capillary bridge formations in various compact colloid assemblies are considered. The study sheds light on a promising route to in situ (in-liquid) firming of fragile colloidal crystals and other compact colloidal microstructures via capillary bridges.

Wet granular rafts: aggregation in two dimensions under shear flow

The aggregation and fragmentation of cohesive granular particles trapped at an air–liquid interface under shear flow are investigated by experiments and compared with numerical simulations. The cohesion owing to the formation of capillary bridges from a thin oil film covering the particles is found to dominate other particle–particle interactions. In the steady state the radius of gyration Rg of an N particle cluster follows a power law Rg ∝ N1/δ. The fractal dimension δ of the clusters lies in the range between 1.5 and 1.6 and depends only weakly on the shear rate . The probability to find a cluster of N particles or larger P(N) displays an exponential tail P(N) ∝ exp(−N/Nc) with a characteristic cluster size Nc. A power law Nc ∝ −β with an exponent β = 0.65 ± 0.06 (β = 0.68 ± 0.02) is found in our experiments (simulations). The fractal dimension of the clusters and the value of β are consistent with an estimate of the largest stable cluster based on the balance between the capillary force and the viscous drag force.

Non-DLVO Silica Interaction Forces in NMP–Water Mixtures. II. An Asymmetric System

The interaction between energetically asymmetric hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces has fundamental and practical importance in both industrial and natural colloidal systems. The interaction forces between a hydrophilic silica sphere and a silanated, hydrophobic glass plate in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP)-water binary mixtures were measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM). A strong and long-range attractive force was observed in pure water and was attributed to the formation of capillary bridges associated with nanoscale bubbles initially present on the hydrophobic surface. When NMP was added, the capillary force and corresponding pull-off force became less attractive, which was explained readily in terms of the surface wettability by the binary solvent mixture. Similar to the case of symmetric (two hydrophilic) surfaces, the range of attraction between the asymmetric surfaces was maximized at around 30 vol % NMP, which is consistent with the formation of a thick adsorbed macrocluster layer on the hydrophilic silica surface.

Sharp Tips from Crumples and Capillary Bridges

ABSTRACTWe describe two techniques to create sharp tips. The first involves the buckling of thin metal films deposited on soft, stretchable substrates. The second involves the formation of narrow necked capillary bridges.

Changes in materials properties explain the effects of humidity on gecko adhesion

Geckos owe their remarkable stickiness to millions of dry setae on their toes, and the mechanism of adhesion in gecko setae has been the topic of scientific scrutiny for over two centuries. Previously, we demonstrated that van der Waals forces are sufficient for strong adhesion and friction in gecko setae, and that water-based capillary adhesion is not required. However, recent studies demonstrated that adhesion increases with relative humidity (RH) and proposed that surface hydration and capillary water bridge formation is important or even necessary. In this study, we confirmed a significant effect of RH on gecko adhesion, but rejected the capillary adhesion hypothesis. While contact forces of isolated tokay gecko setal arrays increased with humidity, the increase was similar on hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, inconsistent with a capillary mechanism. Contact forces increased with RH even at high shear rates, where capillary bridge formation is too slow to affect adhesion. How then can a humidity-related increase in adhesion and friction be explained? The effect of RH on the mechanical properties of setal β-keratin has escaped consideration until now. We discovered that an increase in RH softens setae and increases viscoelastic damping, which increases adhesion. Changes in setal materials properties, not capillary forces, fully explain humidity-enhanced adhesion, and van der Waals forces remain the only empirically supported mechanism of adhesion in geckos.

Controlling the Formation of Capillary Bridges in Binary Liquid Mixtures

We study the formation of capillary bridges between micrometer-sized glass spheres immersed in a binary liquid mixture using bright field and confocal microscopy. The bridges form upon heating due to the preferential wetting of the hydrophilic glass surface by the water-rich phase. If the system is cooled below the demixing temperature, the bridges disappear within a few seconds by intermolecular diffusion. Thus, this system offers the opportunity to switch the bridges on and off and to tune precisely the bridge volume by altering the temperature in a convenient range. We measure the bridge geometry as a function of the temperature from bright field images and calculate the cohesive force. We discuss the influence of the solvent composition on the bridge formation temperature, the strength of the capillary force, and the bridge volume growth rate. Furthermore, we find that the onset of bridge formation coincides with the water-lutidine bulk coexistence curve.

Local Nanoscale Heating Modulates Single-Asperity Friction

We demonstrate measurement and control of single-asperity friction by using cantilever probes featuring an in situ solid-state heater. The heater temperature was varied between 25 and 650 °C (tip temperatures from 25 ± 2 to 120 ± 20 °C). Heating caused friction to increase by a factor of 4 in air at ∼ 30% relative humidity, but in dry nitrogen friction decreased by ∼ 40%. Higher velocity reduced friction in ambient with no effect in dry nitrogen. These trends are attributed to thermally assisted formation of capillary bridges between the tip and substrate in air, and thermally assisted sliding in dry nitrogen. Real-time friction measurements while modulating the tip temperature revealed an energy barrier for capillary condensation of 0.40 ± 0.04 eV but with slower kinetics compared to isothermal measurements that we attribute to the distinct thermal environment that occurs when heating in real time. Controlling the presence of this nanoscale capillary and the associated control of friction and adhesion offers new opportunities for tip-based nanomanufacturing.

Temperature Dependence of Nanoscale Friction Investigated with Thermal AFM Probes

AbstractMeasurements of nanoscale friction between silicon AFM tips featuring an in-situ solid state heater and silicon substrates (both with native oxide) were performed. The temperature of the heater was varied between room temperature and approximately 650 °C. For these temperatures and the silicon substrate, the temperatures at the point of contact are estimated to range from room temperature to approximately 120±20 °C. Experiments were carried out in ambient atmosphere (˜30% relative humidity) and under dry nitrogen. Tests under constant load revealed that in the presence of ambient, friction increased with heater temperature whereas it did not change in dry nitrogen. For experiments carried out for different tip velocities (40 to 7800 nm/s), friction decreased with velocity in ambient and did not change in dry nitrogen. Both trends can be explained by thermally-assisted formation of capillary bridges between tip and substrate and the kinetics of capillary condensation under ambient conditions.

Capillary Bridge Formation and Breakage: A Test to Characterize Antiadhesive Surfaces

In order to characterize very weak adhesive surfaces, we have developed a quantitative test inspired by the Johnson, Kendall, and Roberts adhesion test for soft adhesives, which relies on the formation and then the rupture of a capillary bridge between the surface to be tested and a liquid bath. Both the shape and the kinetics of breakage of the capillary bridge for various coatings put into contact with liquids of various viscosities and surface tensions have been studied. Several pull off regimes can be distinguished. For low pull off velocities, a quasi-static regime is observed, well described by capillary equations and sensitive to the hysteresis of the contact angle of the fluid on the coating. Above a critical pull off velocity that depends on the fluid viscosity, a dynamic regime is observed, characterized by the formation of a flat pancake of fluid on the coating that recedes more slowly than the capillary bridge itself. After the breakage of the capillary bridge, a small drop can remain attached to the surface. The volume of this drop depends on the dynamical regime and is strongly affected by very small differences between the coatings. The aptitude of this test in characterizing very weakly adhesive surfaces is exemplified by a comparison between three different perfluorinated coatings.

Effect of nanobubbles on friction forces between hydrophobic surfaces in water

The interaction between hydrophobic surfaces in aqueous solutions is particularly important because it is encountered in many industrial processes. Even though advances in surface science have been tremendous, the nature of the hydrophobic interaction remains one of the greatest challenges to the field. In this work an atomic force microscope (AFM) was used to measure the normal and lateral interactions between a silica bead and a smooth silica substrate hydrophobized by esterification with 1-octanol. The experiments were performed in water and in water after alcohol–water exchange, a method that has been shown to increase the occurrence and size of nanobubbles at the hydrophobic surface and in turn result in a longer range hydrophobic force due to capillary bridge formation. It was found that the alcohol–water exchange had a significant impact on the friction force due to the increased size of the capillary, which increased adhesion.

Phase transitions far from equilibrium in wet granular matter

The phase diagram of vertically agitated wet granular matter is presented, both experimentally and by simulation. We observe two phase transitions, one of which is driven by the applied force (acceleration), the other by injected energy (velocity of container walls). All observed features can be traced down to the hysteretic nature of capillary bridge formation and rupture. Other details of the interaction are remarkably irrelevant, suggesting a certain universality for the investigated phenomena.

Equation of state of wet granular matter

An expression for the near-contact pair correlation function of D -dimensional weakly polydisperse hard spheres is presented, which arises from elementary free-volume arguments. Its derivative at contact agrees very well with our simulations for D=2 . For jammed states, the expression predicts that the number of exact contacts is equal to 2D, in agreement with established simulations. When the particles are wetted, they interact by the formation and rupture of liquid capillary bridges. Since formation and rupture events of capillary bonds are well separated in configuration space, the interaction is hysteretic with a characteristic energy loss Ecb. The pair correlation is strongly affected by this capillary interaction depending on the liquid-bond status of neighboring particles. A theory is derived for the nonequilibrium probability currents of the capillary interaction which determines the pair correlation function near contact. This finally yields an analytic expression for the equation of state, P=P(N/V,T), of wet granular matter for D=2, valid in the complete density range from gas to jamming. Driven wet granular matter exhibits a van der Waals-like unstable branch at granular temperatures T<Tc corresponding to a first order segregation transition of clusters. For the realistic rupture length of the liquid bridge, scrit=0.07d, the critical point is located at Tc=0.274Ecb. While the critical temperature weakly depends on the rupture length, the critical density phic is shown to scale with scrit according to scrit=4d(sqrt[phiJ/phic]-1). The segregation transition is closely related to the precipitation of granular droplets reported for the free cooling of one-dimensional wet granular matter [A. Fingerle and S. Herminghaus, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 078001 (2006)], and extends the effect to higher dimensional systems. Since the limiting case of sticky bonds, Ecb>>T, is of relevance for aggregation in general, simulations have been performed which show very good agreement with the theoretically predicted coordination K of capillary bonds as a function of the bond length scrit. This result implies that particles that stick at the surface, scrit=0, form isostatic clusters. An extension of the theory in which the bridge coordination number K plays the role of a self-consistent mean-field is proposed.

Biological adhesion for locomotion: basic principles

Surface roughness is the main reason why macroscopic solids usually do not adhere to each other with any measurable strength; even a root-mean-square roughness amplitude of approx. 1 μm is enough to completely remove the adhesion between normal rubber (with an elastic modulus E ≈ 1 MPa) and a hard nominally flat substrate. Strong adhesion between solids with rough surfaces is only possible if at least one of the solids is elastically very soft. Biological adhesive systems used by insects, tree frogs and some lizards for locomotion are built from a relatively stiff material (keratin-like protein with E ≈ 1 GPa). Nevertheless, strong adhesion is possible even to very rough substrate surfaces by using non-compact solid structures consisting of thin fibers, plates and walls. In order to optimize the bonding to rough surfaces while simultaneously avoiding elastic instabilities, e.g., lateral bundling (or clumping) of fibers, Nature uses a hierarchical building principle, where the thickness of the fibers (or walls) decreases as one approaches the outer surface of the attachment pad. Some lizards and spiders are able to utilize dry adhesion to move on rough vertical surfaces, which is possible due to the very compliant surface layers on their attachment pads. Flies, bugs, grasshoppers and tree frogs have less compliant pad surface layers, and in these cases adhesion to rough surfaces is only possible because the animals inject a wetting liquid in the pad-substrate contact area, which generates a relative long-range attractive interaction due to the formation of capillary bridges.