Liquid Front Research Articles

Sliding fluids: Dewetting experiments reveal the solid/liquid boundary condition

Nanoscale liquid polymer films are ideal candidates to probe the solid/liquid boundary condition: Prepared on hydrophobized Si wafer, the films are not stable, they dewet. The dewetting induces a flow without applying an external force. Probing the dynamics of the dewetting film and the morphology of the liquid front, we can deduce the slip length. A variation of the type of hydrophobic coating (silane or Teflon®) of the Si wafer enables us to tune the boundary condition from a no-slip to a nearly full-slip condition. For a short introduction to the topic, we offer a phenomenological approach and supply multimedia files.

Rapid Formation of Coordination Multilayers Using Accelerated Self-Assembly Procedure (ASAP)

Layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of multilayers on surfaces using metal-organic coordination between consecutive layers is a well-established method for multilayer construction. The basic scheme includes self-assembly of a ligand (anchor) monolayer on the surface, followed by alternate binding of metal ions and multifunctional ligand layers to form a coordination multilayer. Binding of the ligand repeat unit to form a new layer is commonly a slow process, taking typically overnight to complete. This renders the process of multilayer preparation exceedingly slow and, in many cases, impractical. Here we describe a method for LbL synthesis of self-assembled coordination multilayers denoted accelerated self-assembly procedure (ASAP), where binding of a full organic ligand layer occurs in ca. 1 min. In the new protocol a small volume of a dilute ligand solution is spread on the substrate surface and evaporated under natural convection conditions, leaving the surface covered with excess ligand. Extensive rinsing in pure solvent results in complete removal of unbound molecules from the surface, leaving only the new coordinated layer. ASAP is demonstrated here by the construction of two kinds of coordination multilayers, comprising mercaptoundecanoic acid-Cu(II) and bishydroxamate-Zr(IV). Multilayers prepared by ASAP and by the standard (overnight adsorption) procedure are compared using ellipsometry, contact-angle, and FTIR data, showing regular multilayer growth in both cases. However, the rapid binding associated with ASAP may lead to a different structure than the one reached after prolonged assembly. Study of the ASAP mechanism suggests that the fast ligand binding kinetics are attributed to a large increase of the local ligand concentration at the moving liquid front when the solvent evaporates on the surface.

On spread extent of sessile droplet into porous medium: Numerical solution and comparisons with experiments

The spread of a wetting liquid sessile droplet into porous medium is solved numerically using the capillary network model with a microforce balance boundary condition at the liquid/gas free interface in the porous medium. The spread starts as the porous medium imbibes the sessile liquid, followed by liquid additionally being spread inside the porous medium itself. After there is no remaining sessile liquid, the net flow across the porous medium boundaries is equal to zero. Either spread, with or without sessile liquid present at the porous medium surface, is rendered by local differences in capillary pressure. These local differences are accounted for by implementing the numerical solution over a heterogeneous capillary network, consisting of pores connected by throats. Both pores and throats follow predefined distribution functions. Once there is no sessile liquid present on the porous medium surface, it is found from a numerical solution that the liquid front can extend significantly in time, wetting very large volumes of the porous medium. This is also measured in experiments, in which over time, an increase in wetted volume of more than 16 times is observed compared to the wetted volume right after the disappearance of sessile liquid on the porous medium surface. The numerical and experimental results for the time changes of (i) volume of liquid remaining at the porous medium surface, (ii) porous medium surface wetted area of the droplet imprint, and (iii) liquid protrusion depth into porous medium are compared, with very good qualitative and quantitative agreement found.

Reduced Interfacial Entanglement Density Affects the Boundary Conditions of Polymer Flow

Hydrodynamic boundary conditions play a crucial role in the flow dynamics of thin films and can be probed by the analysis of liquid front profiles. For long-chained polymer films it was reported that a deviation from a symmetric profile is a result of viscoelastic effects. In this Letter, however, evidence is given that merely a slip-boundary condition at the solid-liquid interface can lead to an asymmetric profile. Variation of molecular weight shows that slippage is directly linked to chain entanglements. We find a reduced entanglement density at the solid-liquid interface (factors 3 to 4), which stresses the importance of considering nonbulk polymer properties in the vicinity of an interface.

The relationship between the wear behavior and microstructure features in end-chill cast Zn–27%Al alloy

An end-chill cast is conducted on Zn–27%Al alloy to produce a variety of microstructural features. The average cooling rate and the velocities of the liquid and solid fronts at several distances from the chill are measured. The structures of the alloy at 10 fixed distances are examined using an optical microscope and the corresponding hardness is measured. The wear behavior is investigated for three microstructures at distances of 1mm, 10mm and 90mm from the chill. As a result of these investigations, the relationship between microstructural features and wear resistance of the alloy is determined. It is observed that the dendrite arm spacing (DAS), the percentage porosity and the interdendritic phase area increase with decreasing cooling rate, and consequently the wear resistance and the hardness value of the alloy decrease. The effect of each parameter is investigated independently, from which it is concluded that the decrease in dendrite arm spacing value is mainly responsible for the observed major improvement in wear behavior and hardness.

Lattice Gas Analysis of Liquid Front in Non-Crimp Fabrics

The liquid flow front during impregnation of non-crimp fabrics is considered. Irregularities in fibre bundle architecture lead to generation of bubbles at this front. The velocity of this interface is highly influenced by capillary forces mainly caused by the small fibres inside the bundles. In order to better understand which shapes the liquid front takes up at different conditions, a lattice gas model has been applied. First, the macroscopic properties of the solved gas in the liquid are discussed. Next, bubble inclusions are analyzed as to liquid–gas interface position and concentrations of minor component in each phase. The capillary effects at the fluid front are studied for systems both with and without gaps between the bundles. The flow in the interior of the fibre bundles is scrutinized, as well, by also considering the viscous stresses. The flow through unidirectional fabrics is considered by a one-dimensional model, which suggests that the liquid front inside bundles and gaps moves with the same speed when the liquid front inside the bundle has to catch up with the liquid front in the gap.

Capillary Filling in Microchannels with Wall Corrugations: A Comparative Study of the Concus−Finn Criterion by Continuum, Kinetic, and Atomistic Approaches

We study the impact of wall corrugations in microchannels on the process of capillary filling by means of three broadly used methods: computational fluid dynamics (CFD), lattice Boltzmann equations (LBE), and molecular dynamics (MD). The numerical results of these approaches are compared and tested against the Concus-Finn (CF) criterion, which predicts pinning of the contact line at rectangular ridges perpendicular to flow for contact angles of theta > 45 degrees . Whereas for theta = 30, 40 (no flow), and 60 degrees (flow) all methods are found to produce data consistent with the CF criterion, at theta = 50 degrees the numerical experiments provide different results. Whereas the pinning of the liquid front is observed both in the LB and CFD simulations, MD simulations show that molecular fluctuations allow front propagation even above the critical value predicted by the deterministic CF criterion, thereby introducing a sensitivity to the obstacle height.

Contamination of a porous bed by a moving front with a finite porosity jump

The contamination of an initially porous bed by a moving low-concentrated suspension is studied. In the framework of a hyperbolic model taking into account large variations of porosity, several exact solutions are given to the problem with a finite porosity jump at the leading contamination front in the case of flows with plane and cylindrical waves. The fact that the particle front lags behind the carrier liquid front is explained. It is shown that the finiteness of the porosity jump at the contamination wave front causes the deceleration in the jump motion, which can be used to determine experimentally the governing parameters of the model. It is also shown that some solutions with several jumps may exist.

Bubble formation and motion in non-crimp fabrics with perturbed bundle geometry

The motion of the liquid front during impregnation of non-crimp fabrics has been considered by using Sethian’s level set method. Particular attention is put on the creation of bubbles at the liquid front and a virtual 3D model mimicking biaxial fabrics has been built for this purpose. The saturated fluid flow is governed by the Navier–Stokes Equations and Darcy law, while capillary pressure has been accounted for at the liquid flow front and continuity maintained. The influence of perturbation in the bundle geometry has been investigated. Local correlations of the dimensions of neighbouring gaps formed between the bundles are of paramount importance. Focus is on inter-bundle bubbles. An existing model for bubble dynamics is used based on a probabilistic approach for bubbles moving, splitting, merging, and dissolving. The same approach was used for intra-bundle bubbles, the difference being that their motion appears to be much slower. The obtained void fractions of inter-bundle bubbles at different vacuum levels applied at the liquid flow front are compared to those from real mouldings with a high degree of conformity.

The uniform capillary model for packed beds and particle wettability

The distribution and movement of fluids in porous media are important in a variety of situations arising naturally and industrially (e.g., water migration in soils, oil recovery, chromatography, filtration and separation processes). Our specific interest is in deriving advancing and receding contact angles from capillary pressure measurements in packed beds of particles partially saturated with liquids. The simplest model of a porous medium treats the porous body as an equivalent uniform capillary giving rise to the same capillary pressure. Pressure measurements were performed successfully with advancing as well as receding liquids. For an advancing liquid front a measurement with a second liquid is needed to calibrate the equivalent capillary radius and obtain the advancing contact angle. For a receding liquid front – an additional determination of the amount of liquid trapped behind in smaller pores is required. The equivalent capillary radius is mainly determined by the porosity of the packed bed and is easily corrected to account for capillary retention. Only then can the receding contact angle be obtained reliably. This new methodology for contact angle measurement was validated with model systems and applied successfully to various real particulate systems.

Nanocrystal Diffusion in a Liquid Thin Film Observed by in Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy

We have directly observed motion of inorganic nanoparticles during fluid evaporation using a transmission electron microscope. Tracking real-time diffusion of both spherical (5-15 nm) and rod-shaped (5 x 10 nm) gold nanocrystals in a thin film of water-15% glycerol reveals complex movements, such as rolling motions coupled to large-step movements and macroscopic violations of the Stokes-Einstein relation for diffusion. As drying patches form during the final stages of evaporation, particle motion is dominated by the nearby retracting liquid front.

Prevention of fouling and scaling in stationary and circulating liquid–solid fluidized bed heat exchangers: Particle impact measurements and analysis

Fluidized particles in liquid–solid fluidized bed heat exchangers are able to remove deposits from the walls and thus to prevent fouling or scaling. This fouling prevention ability is believed to depend strongly on the frequency and force of particle–wall collisions. This paper presents piezoelectric measurements of impacts on the wall in both stationary and circulating fluidized beds of various particle sizes and bed voidages. Two types of impacts were measured, namely by collisions of particles on the sensor and by liquid pressure fronts induced by particle–particle collisions close to the sensor. The characteristics of both impact types are used to analyze the total impulse and energy exerted by impacts on the wall for various fluidized beds.

A study of capillary flow from a pendant droplet

Surface tension driven capillary flow from a pendant droplet into a horizontal glass capillary is inves- tigated in this paper. Effect of the droplet surface on dynamic behavior of such capillary flow is examined and compared with surface tension driven capillary flow from an infinite reservoir. In the experiment, capillaries of 300-700 lm in diameter were used with glycerol-DI water mixture solutions having viscosities ranging from 80 to 934 mPa s. It is observed that compared to the capillary flow from an infinite reservoir, the capillary flow from a droplet exhibits higher rates of meniscus displacement. This is due to an additional driving force resulted from change in droplet surface area (or curvature). The two main parameters influencing the flow are the dimensionless droplet geometry parameter (k) and the dynamic contact angle (hD). The molecular kinetics theory of Blake and De Coninck's model (Adv Colloid Interface Sci 96(1-3): 21-36, 2002) is used to interpret the dynamic contact angle. This theory considers a molecular friction coefficient (f) at the liquid front flowing over a solid surface. More- over, three models are proposed to describe the shape of the pendant droplet during capillary action. It is found that the egg-shaped model provides a more realistic model to compute the shape of the pendant droplet deformed during the capillary action. Thus the predictions by the egg-shaped model are in good agreement with the experimental data.

On the transient coating of a straight tube with a viscoelastic material

We examine the pressure-driven coating of a straight, long tube with a finite amount of viscoelastic liquid. This combines the formation and elongation of an open bubble pushing the liquid downstream with the motion of the advancing liquid front and the deposition of a film along the tube wall. The mixed finite element method is combined with the discontinuous Galerkin method for computing the polymeric contribution to the stress tensor, while a quasi-elliptic grid generation scheme is used for tessellating the highly deforming domain. Global remeshing is adopted to overcome local distortion and coarsening of the mesh which arises from the attachment of advancing front nodes on the wall. The accuracy of the solution is achieved by selectively refining the mesh along areas where sharp boundary layers in stress arise and in particular at the bubble front. An extensive parametric analysis is performed using the affine, single-mode Phan-Tien and Tanner constitutive model. The thickness of the remaining film increases as the solvent contribution to viscosity decreases, because of the sharply increased normal viscoelastic stresses along the bubble front. The effect of decreasing the extensional parameter ɛ PTT is similar because this decreases the shear and extensional thinning in the liquid. The transient nature of the process delays the development of the viscoelastic stresses as the Deborah number increases. The streamlines relative to the liquid tip follow the usual ‘fountain flow’ pattern as long as the bubble and the liquid front do not interact. The non-affine, multi-mode PTT model with constants obtained from the literature for a PIB solution in C14 predicts a slightly thinner deposited film and a flatter bubble front because of its stronger shear thinning. Moreover, it predicts a higher dimensionless bubble velocity because of the very small viscosity ratio of the solvent and a V-shape in the radial distribution of the first normal stress difference and the birefringence just behind the contact line in qualitative agreement with experiments and theory for planar fountain flow.

Multi-curvature liquid meniscus in a nanochannel: Evidence of interplay between intermolecular and surface forces

We examined the formation of a multiply curved meniscus inside rectangular nanochannels, whose width ranges from 50 to 800 nm at a constant height of 200 nm. When the channel width is smaller than approximately 400 nm under partial wetting conditions, a distinct multi-curvature meniscus was observed at the advancing front with an edge disjoined from the wall. In contrast, a typical pre-wetting film was observed at the front regardless of the channel size for complete wetting conditions. Our theoretical analysis demonstrated that the multi-curvature meniscus is generated from the increased contribution of an extra pressure due to intermolecular interactions near the wall. In particular, a plug-like meniscus profile was observed at the advancing liquid front for the 50 nm wide channel owing to an overlap between convex curvatures at the channel walls. Finally, we showed that the filling velocity of liquid can be decreased by decreasing the channel size due to the reduced wettability.

Design and Performance of Slug Damper

This study investigates theoretically and experimentally the slug damper as a novel flow conditioning device, which can be used upstream of compact separation systems. In the experimental part, a 3 in. ID slug damper facility has been installed in an existing 2 in. diameter two-phase flow loop. This flow loop includes an upstream slug generator, a gas-liquid cylindrical cyclone (GLCC©, ©The University of Tulsa, 1994) attached to the slug damper downstream and a set of conductance probes for measuring the propagation of the dissipated slug along the damper. Over 200 experimental runs were conducted with artificially generated inlet slugs of 50 ft length (Ls/d=300) that were dumped into the loop upstream of the slug damper, varying the superficial liquid velocity between 0.5 ft/s and 2.5 ft/s and superficial gas velocity between 10 ft/s and 40 ft/s (in the 2 in. inlet pipe) and utilizing segmented orifice opening heights of 1 in., 1.5 in., 2 in., and 3 in. For each experimental run, the measured data included propagation of the liquid slug front in the damper, differential pressure across the segmented orifice, GLCC liquid level, GLCC outlet liquid flow, and static pressure in the GLCC. The data show that the slug damper/GLCC system is capable of dissipating long slugs, narrowing the range of liquid flow rate from the downstream GLCC. Also, the damper capacity to process large slugs is a strong function of the superficial gas velocity (and mixture velocity). The theoretical part includes the development of a mechanistic model for the prediction of the hydrodynamic flow behavior in the slug damper. The model enables the predictions of the outlet liquid flow rate and the available damping time, and in turn the prediction of the slug damper capacity. Comparison between the model predictions and the acquired data reveals an accuracy of ±30% with respect to the available damping time and outlet liquid flow rate. The developed model can be used for design of slug damper units.

Microbubble suspension as a carrier of oxygen and acclimated bacteria for phenanthrene biodegradation

The applicability of microbubble suspension made of saponin as a biodegradation-enhancing carrier where oxygen and pollutant-degraders are limited was studied. The saponin-microbubble suspension was used to deliver phenanthrene-degrading bacteria, inorganic nutrients, and oxygen. Bench-scale study was carried out to determine the physical properties of the microbubble suspension and to verify whether the delivered bacteria and oxygen were effectively used to degrade phenanthrene. A concentration of 2 g saponin/L H 2O generated stable microbubble suspension with a long half-drainage time and a high gas hold-up, and the addition of phenanthrene-degraders and inorganic salts to the saponin solution did not affect such properties. The flow of the microbubble suspension through a heterogeneous sand/clay-packed column occurred in two phases, with the liquid front advancing faster and the retarded gas front. The retarded gas front provided oxygen with bacteria, which enables phenanthrene biodegradation. Approximately 30% of the spiked phenanthrene was degraded in 21 days when one pore volume of 2.0 g/L saponin-microbubble suspension was applied whereas no phenanthrene decrease was observed following the application of the same saponin solution without microbubble generation. The decrease mainly occurred at the lower part of the column where the supply of oxygen by the microbubble was concentrated.

Capillary filling in patterned channels

We show how the capillary filling of microchannels is affected by posts or ridges on the sides of the channels. Ridges perpendicular to the flow direction introduce contact line pinning, which slows, or sometimes prevents, filling, whereas ridges parallel to the flow provide extra surface that may enhance filling. Patterning the microchannel surface with square posts has little effect on the ability of a channel to fill for equilibrium contact angle theta_{e} less than approximately 30 degrees . For theta_{e} greater than approximately 60 degrees , however, even a small number of posts can pin the advancing liquid front.

Theoretical model for the wetting of a rough surface

Many applications would benefit from an understanding of the physical mechanism behind fluid movement on rough surfaces, including the movement of water or contaminants within an unsaturated rock fracture. Presented is a theoretical investigation of the effect of surface roughness on fluid spreading. It is known that surface roughness enhances the effects of hydrophobic or hydrophilic behavior, as well as allowing for faster spreading of a hydrophilic fluid. A model is presented based on the classification of the regimes of spreading that occur when fluid encounters a rough surface: microscopic precursor film, mesoscopic invasion of roughness and macroscopic reaction to external forces. A theoretical relationship is developed for the physical mechanisms that drive mesoscopic invasion, which is used to guide a discussion of the implications of the theory on spreading conditions. Development of the analytical equation is based on a balance between capillary forces and frictional resistive forces. Chemical heterogeneity is ignored. The effect of various methods for estimating viscous dissipation is compared to available data from fluid rise on roughness experiments. Methods that account more accurately for roughness shape better explain the data as they account for more surface friction; the best fit was found for a hydraulic diameter approximation. The analytical solution implies the existence of a critical contact angle that is a function of roughness geometry, below which fluid will spread and above which fluid will resist spreading. The resulting equation predicts movement of a liquid invasion front with a square root of time dependence, mathematically resembling a diffusive process.

Drops on Microstructured Surfaces Coated with Hydrophilic Polymers: Wenzel's Model and Beyond

In the experiments described in this paper, micromachined silicon post surfaces were coated with thin films of a polymer for which the contact angle on the smooth material was around 70 degrees . Drops wetted these surfaces in the Wenzel or "penetration" mode. We have determined the advancing and receding angles as a function of the roughness geometry and quantitatively compared our results to the contact angles predicted by Wenzel's model. We discuss reasons for discrepancies and propose a model for the motion of the meniscus where we take into account the precise shape of the liquid front during its movement through the post structure.