Science Daily July 11, 2023 Motivated by the need to develop new point-of-care clinical tests researchers at Duke University developed a technology that only uses surface chemistry and gravity to manipulate the sequence, timing, movement, and interactions of discrete droplets across a surface solely by gravity. To demonstrate the application of the technology they fabricated a device that combined fluidic elements to carry out a multi-step enzymatic assay of LDH with minimal user intervention. To fabricate the device, they developed a surface coating toolbox of nine different coatings with three levels of wettability and three levels of slipperiness that could […]
Tag Archives: Water repellent surface
Water can’t touch this sanded, powdered surface
Phys.org August 4, 2022 Water droplets must have large apparent contact angle (CA) (>150°) and small CA hysteresis (<10°) on hydrophobic surfaces. Previous research usually involved complex fabrication strategies to modify the surface wettability. Researchers at Rice University developed a simple technique that involves sandpaper and a selection of powders which are sanded into the surface. They applied the technique on a variety of surfaces (Teflon, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and polydimethylsiloxane) with a variety of powder additives. These included laser-induced graphene fiber, turbostratic flash graphene, molybdenum disulfide, Teflon, and boron nitride. A variety of aluminum oxide sandpapers were […]