Droplets flung by hydrophobic material may aid water
purification and oil refining
(August 17, 2015) We’ve
all seen dewdrops form on spider webs. But what if they flung themselves off of
the strands instead?
Researchers at Duke University and the University of British
Columbia have now observed this peculiar phenomenon, which could benefit many
industrial applications. As long as the strands are moderately hydrophobic and
relatively thin, small droplets combining into one are apt to dance themselves
right off of the tightrope. The discovery could form the basis of new coalescer
technologies for water purification, oil refining and more.
The findings were reported online on August 14, 2015, in
Physical Review Letters.
Chuan Hua-Chen
“We were studying how insect wings with a hairy structure
clean themselves, and an undergrad Adam Williams saw two droplets merge and
suddenly leave a strand of hair,” said Chuan-Hua Chen, associate professor of
mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke. “Since we couldn’t easily
reproduce the effect, we thought it was just an artifact, perhaps due to the
slight breeze created by the humidifier in the experiment.”
But thanks to some ingenuity from Kungang Zhang, a graduate
student in Chen’s group, they discovered that the “dancing droplets” are real,
and are more likely to propel themselves off of a strand if they merge from
opposite sides -- a finding that allowed the team to study the phenomenon in
detail.
As a droplet grows larger, it stores energy on its expanding
surface. When two droplets merge, the mass stays the same, but the surface area
decreases. This causes a small amount of energy to be released. As long as the
drops are only attached to a small solid area, the released energy is enough to
fling them away. This proves true so long as the strand is reasonably
hydrophobic, such as the Teflon-coated fibers in the experiment, and the
diameter of the strand is a few times smaller than that of the droplet.