Capillary interactions between soft capsules protruding through thin fluid films

Wouters M, Aouane O, Sega M, Harting J (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Soft Matter Royal Society of Chemistry

Book Volume: 16

Pages Range: 10910-10920

Journal Issue: 48

DOI: 10.1039/d0sm01385d

Abstract

When a suspension dries, the suspending fluid evaporates, leaving behind a dry film composed of the suspended particles. During the final stages of drying, the height of the fluid film on the substrate drops below the particle size, inducing local interface deformations that lead to strong capillary interactions among the particles. Although capillary interactions between rigid particles are well studied, much is still to be understood about the behaviour of soft particles and the role of their softness during the final stages of film drying. Here, we use our recently-introduced numerical method that couples a fluid described using the lattice Boltzmann approach to a finite element description of deformable objects to investigate the drying process of a film with suspended soft particles. Our measured menisci deformations and lateral capillary forces, which agree well with previous theoretical and experimental works in case of rigid particles, show that the deformations become smaller with increasing particle softness, resulting in weaker lateral interaction forces. At large interparticle distances, the force approaches that of rigid particles. Finally, we investigate the time dependent formation of particle clusters at the late stages of the film drying.

Authors with CRIS profile

Jens Harting Professur für Multiskalen-Modellierung für kontrollierte Filmbildung (HIERN)

Involved external institutions

Forschungszentrum Jülich / Research Centre Jülich (FZJ) DE Germany (DE) Eindhoven University of Technology / Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e) NL Netherlands (NL)

How to cite

APA:

Wouters, M., Aouane, O., Sega, M., & Harting, J. (2020). Capillary interactions between soft capsules protruding through thin fluid films. Soft Matter, 16(48), 10910-10920. https://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0sm01385d

MLA:

Wouters, Maarten, et al. "Capillary interactions between soft capsules protruding through thin fluid films." Soft Matter 16.48 (2020): 10910-10920.

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