Simple Method for the Direct Measurement of Cohesive Forces Between Microscopic Particles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, cost-effective method to directly measure weak cohesive forces between microscopic particles, demonstrated on oil droplets with depletion interactions, enabling precise force measurements at the pico-Newton scale.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel experimental setup for measuring microscopic cohesive forces directly, applicable to various particle interactions beyond the tested oil droplet system.

Findings

Cohesive forces increase with droplet size and depletant concentration.

The method reliably measures forces on the tens of pico-Newton scale.

The technique is reproducible and adaptable to different particle systems.

Abstract

We present a simple and inexpensive method for measuring weak cohesive interactions. This technique is applied to the specific case of oil droplets with a depletion interaction, dispersed in an aqueous solution. The experimental setup involves creating a short string of droplets while immobilizing a single droplet. The droplets are held together via depletion interactions and a single cohesive bond holds together nearest neighbours. Initially, the buoyant droplets are held in a flat horizontal chamber. The droplets float to the top of the chamber and are in contact with a flat glass interface. In the horizontal configuration, there is no component of the effective buoyant force acting in the plane of the chamber. The angle of the chamber is gradually increased and the effective buoyant force acting on the string of droplets slowly increases. At a critical point, when the combination of gravity and buoyancy is equal to the cohesive force, the droplet string will detach from the immobile droplet. Our method allows for a simple direct measurement of cohesive forces on the tens of pico-Newton scale. To illustrate the validity of this technique, the droplet radii and concentration of depletant are varied, and their impact on the cohesive force is measured. This method offers a simple, accessible, and reproducible means of exploring cohesive interactions beyond the specific case of oil droplets and a depletion interaction.