Wetting on Nanorough Surfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a free-energy model to study fluid dynamics near nanorough surfaces, capturing static wetting behavior and dynamic slip properties, bridging microscopic and macroscopic modeling approaches.

Contribution

It presents a novel free-energy approach that combines static wetting phenomena with dynamic slip behavior at nanostructured surfaces.

Findings

Accurately models wetting angles and Cassie-Wenzel transition

Captures liquid slippage at nanorough boundaries

Bridges phase-field and lattice-Boltzmann modeling methods

Abstract

We present in this Letter a free-energy approach to the dynamics of a fluid near a nanostructured surface. The model accounts both for the static phase equilibrium in the vicinity of the surface (wetting angles, Cassie-Wenzel transition) and the dynamical properties like liquid slippage at the boundary. This method bridges the gap between phenomenological phase-field approaches and more macroscopic lattice-Boltzmann models.