Blueprints offer replicable method to measure capillary liquid bridges

Capillary liquid bridges, which form when a droplet links two surfaces, play important roles in nature and industry. In addition to sticking certain small animals to walls, they are found in human joints and respiratory diseases, as well as industrial processes such as soldering and lithography. They may have potential medical applications in stem cells and drug delivery.

To better understand capillary liquid bridges, researchers must characterize their associated forces and geometrical parameters. Goodband et al. developed a setup that allows measurement of capillary liquid bridges between various kinds of surfaces, including liquid infused surfaces.

Liquid infused surfaces have desirable properties including self-cleaning, self-healing, antifouling, and anti-icing. However, these properties make them more difficult to measure. Available setups to investigate these systems are usually too expensive, too complex, or not sensitive enough. This setup is inexpensive, easy to build, and offers micronewton sensitivity.

“Significantly, while the setup is fully motorized, its cost remains relatively modest—less than $10,000—and we expect other research groups to replicate it and use it for their own research,” said author Kislon Voïtchovsky. “The improved force sensitivity and modularity of our setup enables full characterization of liquid bridges between liquid infused surfaces and any other surfaces, as the bridge is being extended or compressed.”

This setup characterizes force and geometry in liquid bridges between liquid infused surfaces, as well as more classical surfaces. The authors present a blueprint of the setup, which is made up of commercially available elements, and the required software. They hope other research groups will replicate the setup and adapt it to their needs.

Source: “Development of a setup to characterize capillary liquid bridges between liquid infused surfaces,” by Sarah J. Goodband, Halim Kusumaatmaja, and Kislon Voïtchovsky, AIP Advances (2022). The article can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0072548 .