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Directed motion of two-component droplets on wedge-shaped composite copper surfaces without back-end pinning

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Abstract

The motion of three-phase contact line of a droplet is always halted by the contact angle hysteresis on a common solid surface. In this work, the Ag/Cu surface and Cu(OH)2/Cu surface with water contact angle of 25.0° were fabricated and found favorable for two-component droplet moving. The droplet, water with propylene glycol in irregular shape could restore to a circle (top view) on these prepared surfaces. Inspired by the shape restoration, the directed motion of two-component droplet without back-end pinning was achieved on both the wedge-shaped Ag/Cu and Cu(OH)2/Cu composite surfaces. The two-component droplet moves in a way of the front-end spreading with the subsequent back-end shrinking. The needle-like Cu(OH)2 microstructure is more conducive to the front-end spreading, while the spheroidal Ag particles on Cu substrate is in favor of the back-end shrinking. In addition, the segmented Ag@Cu(OH)2/Cu wedge-shaped composite surfaces with Ag film on the narrow end of the track and Cu(OH)2 on the wide end could enhance the droplet moving. Finally, a micro-chemical reactor was designed capable of driving two dispersed droplets to move in a specific direction, converge, and then react with each other.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21776094).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Green Chemical Product Technology, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, People’s Republic of China

    Hui Zhang, Jiang Cheng, Shouping Xu, Pihui Pi & Xiufang Wen

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, People’s Republic of China

    Cailong Zhou

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  1. Hui Zhang
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  2. Jiang Cheng
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  3. Shouping Xu
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  4. Pihui Pi
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  5. Xiufang Wen
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  6. Cailong Zhou
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Correspondence to Jiang Cheng.

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Zhang, H., Cheng, J., Xu, S. et al. Directed motion of two-component droplets on wedge-shaped composite copper surfaces without back-end pinning. Microfluid Nanofluid 24, 67 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-020-02376-w

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