Scientists have developed a gold microstructure substrate with the ability to repel water as well as bubbles with tunable wettability.
Context
Scientists have developed a gold microstructure substrate with the ability to repel water as well as bubbles with tunable wettability.
Gold microstructure substrate
- The substrate showed hydrophobic nature, which gets magnified when coated with a self-assembled monolayer of octadecane thiol - a water-soluble sulfur compound with a carbon alkyl chain.
- The coating results in a reduction in surface energy, which in turn facilitates an enhancement in hydrophobic behaviour.
- Underwater wettability investigations on the substrate showed that it mainly repelled bubbles and when functionalised with coating of octadecanethiol, it repels mainly oil.
How the development is significant?
- It can be used in designing microfluidic devices, biosensors and useful in water transportation and self-cleaning.
What is Wettability?
- Wettability is the ability of a liquid to maintain contact with a solid surface.
- It is an important property in surface and interface science.
- Its influence is seen in many biochemical processes, sensing, microfluidics, water transportation, self-cleaning, industrial processes.
- The tunable wettability results from tunability in surface energy of the substrate, which can be utilized to regulate the direction of flow in water transportation and self-cleaning applications.
