Mediation of lubricated air films using spatially periodic dielectrophoretic effect

Quoc Vo and Tuan Tran ()
Additional contact information
Quoc Vo: Nanyang Technological University
Tuan Tran: Nanyang Technological University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract A stone thrown in a lake captures air as it collides with water and sinks; likewise a rain drop falling on a flat surface traps air bubbles underneath and creates a spectacular splash. These natural occurrences, from bubble entrapment to liquid ejection, happen as air fails to escape from the closing gap between liquid and solid surfaces. Trapping of air is devastating for casting, coating, painting, and printing industries, or those intolerant of water entry noise. Attempts to eliminate the interfering air rely on either reducing the ambient pressure or modifying the solid surfaces. The former approach is inflexible in its implementation, while the latter one is inherently limited by the wetting speed of liquid or the draining capacity of air passages created on the solid. Here, we present a “divide and conquer” approach to split the thin air gap into tunnels and subsequently squeeze air out from the tunnels against its viscous resistance using spatially periodic dielectrophoretic force. We confirm the working principles by demonstrating suppression of both bubble entrapment and splash upon impacts of droplets on solid surfaces.

Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24534-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24534-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24534-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().