What is it about?
Coffee rings occur when the beverage spills over its mug and assumes the shape of the mug’s base. As the water evaporates and the ring dries, the coffee residue does not evenly distribute over the surface but instead concentrates in the outline. This aptly named coffee-ring effect is unwanted in many applications that require uniform deposition of particles, like inkjet printing and producing DNA microarrays. Inspired by the ultrahydrophobicity of lotus leaves, Wang et al. designed a microwell array that neutralized the coffee-ring effect and enabled uniform particle distribution.
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Why is it important?
The structural properties originating from animals and plants in nature provide promising directions for studying the evaporation of nonvolatile solute droplets
Perspectives
We took advantage of Wenzel wettability, modifying the lotus design so the droplets easily spread and fill the wells.
Lin Du
University of Shanghai for Science and Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Neutralizing coffee-ring effect using gradual structures for uniform particle distribution, Physics of Fluids, March 2024, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0190486.
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