Will we ever wash our hands of lubrication theory?

Lubrication theory is used to investigate how weakly bound particles can be transported away from the vicinity of the wall when two spatially periodic rough surfaces are sheared relative to one another at constant velocity while immersed in fluid. The aim is to model what could be an important process during decontamination of hands by washing and is motivated by Mittal ["The flow physics of COVID-19," J. Fluid Mech.

Spontaneous imbibition of surfactant solution into an oil-wet capillary: wettability restoration by surfactant-contaminant complexation.

For a given type of rock, the effectiveness of oil recovery through wettability alteration is highly dependent upon the nature of the water-soluble surfactant used. Different mechanisms have been proposed by others to explain wettability alteration by surfactants, and understanding the process is crucial to improve recovery performance. Known mechanisms include (1) surfactant adsorption onto the oil-wet solid surface (coating mechanism) and (2) surfactant molecules complexing with contaminant molecules from the crude oil which are adsorbed on the rock surface so as to strip them off (cleaning mechanism).

Forced and spontaneous imbibition of surfactant solution into an oil-wet capillary: the effects of surfactant diffusion ahead of the advancing meniscus.

A previous paper (Hammond, P.; Unsal, E. Langmuir 2009, 25, 12591-12603) reported a simplified model for the flow of a surfactant solution into an oil-wet capillary.

Spontaneous and forced imbibition of aqueous wettability altering surfactant solution into an initially oil-wet capillary.

Unforced invasion of wettability-altering aqueous surfactant solutions into an initially oil-filled oil-wet capillary tube has been observed to take place very slowly, and because this system is an analogue for certain methods of improved oil recovery from naturally fractured oil-wet reservoirs, it is important to identify the rate-controlling processes. We used a model for the process published by Tiberg et al. ( Tiberg , F.