Liquid-Gas Surface Tension Voltage Dependence During Electrowetting on Dielectric of 5-90 nm Gold Nanofluids

Saeid Vafaei, Karthik Chinnathambi, Theodorian Borca-Tasciuc

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

This article investigates the effective liquid-gas surface tension changes of water and 5-90nm gold nanofluids measured during electrowetting on dielectric experiments. The Young-Laplace equation for sessile droplets in air was solved to fit the experimental droplet shape and determine the effective liquid-gas surface tension at each applied voltage. A good agreement between experimental droplet shapes and the predictions was observed for all the liquids investigated in applied range of 0-30V. The measured liquid-gas effective surface tensions of water and gold nanofluid decreased with voltage. At a given voltage, the effective liquid-gas surface tension of gold nanofluids initially decreased as the size of gold nanoparticles increased from 5 nm to 50 nm. Then, for 70nm and 90nm particle gold nanofluids, the effective liquid-gas surface tension started increasing too. The size of nanoparticles, and the applied voltage have a significant effect on variation of the effective liquid-gas surface tension with variations as much as 93% induced by voltage at a given particle size and 80% induced by particle size at a given voltage.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)797-801
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Colloid and Interface Science
Volume490
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 Mar 2017

Keywords

  • contact angle
  • electrowetting
  • gold nanoparticle
  • liquid–gas surface tension
  • solid–liquid surface tension
  • wettability

EGS Disciplines

  • Materials Science and Engineering

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