Issue 44, 2019

Wetting and recovery of nano-patterned surfaces beyond the classical picture

Abstract

Hydrophobic (nano)textured surfaces, also known as superhydrophobic surfaces, have a wide range of technological applications, including in the self-cleaning, anti-moisture, anti-icing, anti-fogging and friction/drag reduction fields, and many more. The accidental complete wetting of surface textures, which destroys superhydrophobicity, and the opposite process of recovery are two crucial processes that can prevent or enable the technological applications mentioned before. Understanding these processes is key to designing surfaces with tailored wetting and recovery properties. However, recent experiments have suggested that the currently available theories are insufficient for describing the observed phenomena. In this work we offer a dynamic picture of these processes beyond the state of the art showing that the key ingredient determining the experimental behavior is the inertia of the liquid in the wetting and dewetting processes, which is neglected in microscopic and macroscopic quasi-static theories inspired by the classical nucleation theory. The present findings are also important for other related phenomena, such as heterogeneous cavitation, where vapor/gas bubbles form at surface asperities, condensation, dynamics of the triple line, micelle formation, etc.

Graphical abstract: Wetting and recovery of nano-patterned surfaces beyond the classical picture

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 Jun 2019
Accepted
18 Sep 2019
First published
04 Nov 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 21458-21470

Wetting and recovery of nano-patterned surfaces beyond the classical picture

S. Marchio, S. Meloni, A. Giacomello and C. M. Casciola, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 21458 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR05105H

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