Design of Structured Surfaces for Directional Mobility of Droplets

This paper deals with the directional mobility of droplets on structured surfaces. Structured surfaces were micro-patterned with rectangular lines and spaces of varying pitch and height in the sub-millimeter range. The material used was polydimethylsiloxane, which is hydrophobic and wettable by oil. First, we studied the effect of the structural design on the sliding angle of pure water or oil through experiments. For pure water droplets, we found that a wider pitch enhanced the directionality. On the other hand, oil droplets spread along the groove because of their low surface tension and strong capillary force. The directionality of the sliding angle of oil droplets was larger than that of pure water, especially when the groove was narrower and deeper. Second, we poured a large amount of liquid on the structure and evaluated the removal rate on the tilted surface. We found that a parallel structure enhanced the liquid mobility for both pure water and oil