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Content archived on 2024-05-29

Droplet detachment by thermal fluctuations

Objective

The process of droplet snap-off -as occurring in a dripping faucet- is frequently observed in daily life and includes rich and beautiful phenomena. As the radius of the neck decreases a singularity develops due to the infinite curvature at the point of snap-off. Both just before and after the point of snap-off molecular scales are reached.

At such small scales thermal fluctuations start playing a role and this thermal noise greatly influences the observed behaviour as predicted by theory and simulations. Experiments that reach this scale are still lacking and here we propose to investigate droplet detachment affected by thermal fluctuations.

As our model system we will use a fluid-fluid phase separating colloid-polymer mixture, which is well known to display behaviour analogous to molecular fluid-fluid systems. Given the current trend of miniaturization (see, for example, the field of microfluidics) this work is not only motivated from a fundamental point of view, but has clear technological relevance as well. In addition, a better understanding of droplet detachment may lead to a better control of spraying and other droplet formation methods, which are important industrial processes.

Recently, we have been able to directly visualize thermal capillary waves in our model system by using an advanced microscopy technique. This observation can be considered as an important first step to address the effects of thermal noise in many different fundamental as well as technological issues. Here, we propose to explore the effects in droplet snap-off, which combines the expertise of the co-ordinator and that of the host.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Topic(s)

Call for proposal

FP6-2004-MOBILITY-5
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

EIF - Marie Curie actions-Intra-European Fellowships

Coordinator

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE
EU contribution
No data
Total cost
No data