Sliding Droplets · Elucidating the Mechanism of Lubrication for Sliding Droplets: Hydrodynamics, Surface Forces, and the Role of Surfactants and Polymers

Elucidating the Mechanism of Lubrication for Sliding Droplets: Hydrodynamics, Surface Forces, and the Role of Surfactants and Polymers

The work during this project provided a new knowledge about the interactions of droplets or bubbles with solid surfaces. The first phase of the project focused on the understanding how droplets or bubbles interact with solid surfaces in a liquid environment, and how that interaction can be altered through control of electrostatic, van der Waals, and other surface forces. The results of this part of work is the ability to control the interactions between a droplet or a bubble and a solid surface by dictating the conformation and surface ordering of polymers and surfactants at the liquid-liquid and solid-solid interface. The impact of the research on fundamental interactions of droplets and bubbles with solids is very wide as emulsions or foams correspond to many applications in such areas us food production, new materials, cosmetics, mining. The other goal of the project was to investigate motion of droplets in microdfluidic channels. Microfluidics is the science and technology of manipulating fluids at the very small scale. Microfluidic techniques become promising tool in such areas as biology, medicine, chemistry and physics. During this project we developed the knowledge about mechanisms that control behaviour of droplets in microfluidic channels. This allowed us to significantly improve techniques enabling very precise manipulation on droplets in microfluidic circuits. The technologies developed during this project will allow: In chemistry - testing thousands of reactions, encapsulating chemical reactions in microfluidic drops. In physics - creating controlled automated systems and experimental set-ups for example to investigate surface phenomena. In biology and medicine - processing many samples, conducting experiments on the scale of the cell and understanding the interactions between cells, improving the accuracy and timeliness of diagnosis, reducing experimental volumes. The outcomes of our project would make the diagnosis more accessible and spread the range of diagnosis tests. The method, which we are developing, could become the basis for the design of low-cost and simple-to-use diagnostic tests, that could perform complex biochemical analysis. Fast diagnosis of diseases is very crucial for improving quality of living of people or even security of all mankind on global scale. Simplification of the diagnostic procedures has a great impact on the life of people over the whole world. This goal attracts an attention of many researchers, engineers, industrial companies and governments. The project, in the broader context aims to make an important step in this direction. More details can be found on the project webpage: http://fluid.ippt.pan.pl/sliding_droplets/Welcome.html

Data: CORDIS, © European Union