Autonomous Interfacial Assembly of Polymer Nanofilms via Surfactant-Regulated Marangoni Instability.

Interfacial polymerization (IP) provides a versatile platform for fabricating defect-free functional nanofilms for various applications, including molecular separation, energy, electronics, and biomedical materials. Unfortunately, coupled with complex natural instability phenomena, the IP mechanism and key parameters underlying the structural evolution of nanofilms, especially in the presence of surfactants as an interface regulator, remain puzzling. Here, we interfacially assembled polymer nanofilm membranes at the free water-oil interface in the presence of differently charged surfactants and comprehensively characterized their structure and properties. Combined with computational simulations, an in situ visualization of interfacial film formation discovered the critical role of Marangoni instability induced by the surfactants via various mechanisms in structurally regulating the nanofilms. Despite their different instability-triggering mechanisms, the delicate control of the surfactants enabled the fabrication of defect-free, ultra-permselective nanofilm membranes. Our study identifies critical IP parameters that allow us to rationally design nanofilms, coatings, and membranes for target applications.

Vapor Absorption and Marangoni Flows in Evaporating Drops.

We experimentally and analytically studied vapor-driven solutal Marangoni flow by varying volatile liquid sources on top of the water droplet. We checked and compared the effects of solubility and vapor pressures of volatile liquids on the internal flow pattern using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and the droplet shape using shadowgraphy experiments. To explain the internal flow, we explored the absorption and evaporation mechanism of the vapors and we found that Henry's constant of the volatile liquid is the primary factor. Based on the scaling arguments, we developed theoretical models to explain how much vapor is absorbed into the water droplet, and how the flow pattern occurs and evolves. The scaling models show that there is a good agreement with the experimental results. We believe that understanding this phenomenon is useful for microfluidics applications and fundamental liquid-gas interface problems where vapors can be absorbed into another liquid.

Control of solutal Marangoni-driven vortical flows and enhancement of mixing efficiency.

HYPOTHESIS: In droplet microfluidics applications, flow control and mixing in a small volume without any active external devices is a challenge. Vapor-mediated solutal Marangoni flows can be effectively generated by applying the vapor of a volatile liquid, which can be possibly controlled, and can eventually be used in a mixing enhancement device. EXPERIMENTS: We investigated and controlled vapor-mediated solutal Marangoni flows by varying the local surface tension. We systematically tested the effects of different volatile liquids and their vapor concentration on the flow pattern. Furthermore, by varying the number of vapor sources, we generated and controlled multiple vortices, and analyzed them by particle image velocimetry (PIV). The proposed method was applied to a mixing enhancement application. FINDINGS: We show that in addition to the surface tension of the volatile liquid, the vapor concentration also influenced the local surface tension along the interface, which in turn changed the internal flow velocity. To predict the flow velocity and oscillatory frequency of the solutal Marangoni flow, we developed a theoretical model based on scaling analysis that showed a good agreement with the experimental results. We believe that the current study will motivate low-cost and portable sample flow control and mixing systems in the near future.