Effect of Wettability and Adhesion Property of Solid Margins on Water Drainage

Abstract

Liquid flows at the solid surface and drains at the margin under gravity are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Previous research mainly focuses on the effect of substantial margin’s wettability on liquid pinning and has proved that hydrophobicity inhibits liquids from overflowing margins while hydrophilicity plays the opposite role. However, the effect of solid margins’ adhesion properties and their synergy with wettability on the overflowing behavior of water and resultant drainage behaviors are rarely studied, especially for large-volume water accumulation on the solid surface. Here, we report the solid surfaces with high-adhesion hydrophilic margin and hydrophobic margin stably pin the air-water-solid triple contact lines at the solid bottom and solid margin, respectively, and then drain water faster through stable water channels termed water channel-based drainage over a wide range of water flow rates. The hydrophilic margin promotes the overflowing of water from top to bottom. It constructs a stable “top + margin + bottom” water channel, and a high-adhesion hydrophobic margin inhibits the overflowing from margin to bottom and constructs a stable “top + margin” water channel. The constructed water channels essentially decrease marginal capillary resistances, guide top water onto the bottom or margin, and assist in draining water faster, under which gravity readily overcomes the surface tension resistance. Consequently, the water channel-based drainage mode achieves 5–8 times faster drainage behavior than the no-water channel drainage mode. The theoretical force analysis also predicts the experimental drainage volumes for different drainage modes. Overall, this article reveals marginal adhesion and wettability-dependent drainage modes and provides motivations for drainage plane design and relevant dynamic liquid-solid interaction for various applications.