Coexistence and transition between Cassie and Wenzel state on pillared hydrophobic surface
- 26 May 2009
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 106 (21), 8435-8440
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0902027106
Abstract
Water droplets on rugged hydrophobic surfaces typically exhibit one of the following two states: (i) the Wenzel state [Wenzel RN (1936) Ind Eng Chem 28:988-994] in which water droplets are in full contact with the rugged surface (referred as the wetted contact) or (ii) the Cassie state [Cassie, ABD, Baxter S (1944) Trans Faraday Soc 40:546-551] in which water droplets are in contact with peaks of the rugged surface as well as the "air pockets" trapped between surface grooves (the composite contact). Here, we show large-scale molecular dynamics simulation of transition between Wenzel state and Cassie state of water droplets on a periodic nanopillared hydrophobic surface. Physical conditions that can strongly affect the transition include the height of nanopillars, the spacing between pillars, the intrinsic contact angle, and the impinging velocity of water nanodroplet ("raining" simulation). There exists a critical pillar height beyond which water droplets on the pillared surface can be either in the Wenzel state or in the Cassie state, depending on their initial location. The free-energy barrier separating the Wenzel and Cassie state was computed on the basis of a statistical-mechanics method and kinetic raining simulation. The barrier ranges from a few tenths of k(B)T(0) (where k(B) is the Boltzmann constant, and T(0) is the ambient temperature) for a rugged surface at the critical pillar height to approximately 8 k(B)T(0) for the surface with pillar height greater than the length scale of water droplets. For a highly rugged surface, the barrier from the Wenzel-to-Cassie state is much higher than from Cassie-to-Wenzel state. Hence, once a droplet is trapped deeply inside the grooves, it would be much harder to relocate on top of high pillars.Keywords
This publication has 49 references indexed in Scilit:
- Superhydrophobicity and Contact-Line IssuesMRS Bulletin, 2008
- Biological and Synthetic Self-Cleaning SurfacesMRS Bulletin, 2008
- Designing Superoleophobic SurfacesScience, 2007
- Effect of Surface Polarity on Water Contact Angle and Interfacial Hydration StructureThe Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2007
- Hydrophobic properties of a wavy rough substrateThe European Physical Journal E, 2005
- Transition between Superhydrophobic States on Rough SurfacesLangmuir, 2004
- Creation of a Superhydrophobic Surface from an Amphiphilic PolymerAngewandte Chemie-International Edition, 2003
- Reversible molecular dynamics for rigid bodies and hybrid Monte CarloThe Journal of Chemical Physics, 1999
- Molecular dynamics simulations of oxygen monolayers on graphiteLangmuir, 1987
- Wettability of porous surfacesTransactions of the Faraday Society, 1944