Nanodroplets on rough hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces

TL;DR

This study uses Molecular Dynamics simulations to analyze how nanodroplets behave on rough hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces, revealing the influence of surface roughness and thermal fluctuations on contact angles and hysteresis.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the nanoscale wetting behavior, highlighting the role of short-wavelength roughness and thermal fluctuations in contact angle hysteresis.

Findings

Contact angle depends on root mean square roughness for hydrophobic surfaces.

Nanodroplets are in a Cassie-like state on rough hydrophobic surfaces.

No contact angle hysteresis occurs on hydrophobic surfaces due to thermal fluctuations.

Abstract

We present results of Molecular Dynamics (MD) calculations on the behavior of liquid nanodroplets on rough hydrophobic and hydrophilic solid surfaces. On hydrophobic surfaces, the contact angle for nanodroplets depends strongly on the root mean square roughness amplitude, but it is nearly independent of the fractal dimension of the surface. Since increasing the fractal dimension increases the short-wavelength roughness, while the long-wavelength roughness is almost unchanged, we conclude that for hydrophobic interactions the short-wavelength (atomistic) roughness is not very important. We show that the nanodroplet is in a Cassie-like state. For rough hydrophobic surfaces, there is no contact angle hysteresis due to strong thermal fluctuations, which occur at the liquid-solid interface on the nanoscale. On hydrophilic surfaces, however, there is strong contact angle hysteresis due to higher energy barrier. These findings may be very important for the development of artificially biomimetic superhydrophobic surfaces.