Manipulation and control of droplets on surfaces in a homogeneous electric field.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35022399.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-27879-0 and PMC identifier 8755840.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
A method to manipulate and control droplets on a surface is presented. The method is based on inducing electric dipoles inside the droplets using a homogeneous external electric field. It is shown that the repulsive dipole force efficiently suppresses the coalescence of droplets moving on a liquid-infused surface (LIS). Using a combination of experiments, numerical computations and semi-analytical models, the dependence of the repulsion force on the droplet volumes, the distance between the droplets and the electric field strength is revealed. The method allows to suppress coalescence in complex multi-droplet flows and is real-time adaptive. When the electric field strength exceeds a critical value, tip streaming from the droplets sets in. Based on that, it becomes possible to withdraw minute samples from an array of droplets in a parallel process.