Convective Drying of Films of Polymer Solutions: Front Propagation Revealed by Thermal Measurements.

We report on the drying of films of polymer solutions under a controlled laminar air flow. Temperature measurements reveal that a drying front propagates in the film at constant velocity. Using thermal calibration, we are able to quantitatively determine the local drying rate of the film, and we find it agrees with conservation arguments.

How emulsified droplets induce the bursting of suspended films of liquid mixtures.

Emulsion droplets of silicone oil (PDMS) are widely used as antifoaming agents but, in the case of non-aqueous foams, the mechanisms responsible for the bursting of the films separating the bubbles remain unclear. We consider a ternary non-aqueous liquid mixture in which PDMS-rich microdroplets are formed by spontaneous emulsification. In order to quantitatively assess the effect of the emulsified microdroplets, we measure the lifetime of sub-micrometer-thick suspended films of these emulsions as well as the time variations of their thickness profiles.

Complexity in Wetting Dynamics.

The spreading dynamics of a droplet of pure liquid deposited on a rigid, nonsoluble substrate has been extensively investigated. In a purely hydrodynamic description, the dynamics of the contact line is determined by a balance between the energy associated with the capillary driving force and the energy dissipated by the viscous shear in the liquid. This balance is expressed by the Cox-Voinov law, which relates the spreading velocity to the contact angle.

Formation of glassy skins in drying polymer solutions: approximate analytical solutions.

We study the formation of a glassy skin at the air interface of drying polymer solutions. We introduce a simple approximation, which is valid for most diffusion problems, and which allows us to derive analytical relationships for the polymer concentration as a function of time. We show that the approximate results differ by less than 15% from those obtained by numerically solving the diffusion equation.

Correction: Developing an advanced gut on chip model enabling the study of epithelial cell/fibroblast interactions.

Correction for 'Developing an advanced gut on chip model enabling the study of epithelial cell/fibroblast interactions' by Marine Verhulsel , , 2021, , 365-377, https://doi.org/10.1039/d0lc00672f.

Drying Liquid Coatings with an Evaporation Mask: Theory and Experiments.

We report a study of the spatially varying thickness of dried films of polymer solutions resulting from a nonuniform evaporation flux. The controlled heterogeneity of the evaporation flux is imposed by placing a solid mask above the evaporating film spread on a solid substrate. At the end of drying, a depression has formed under the mask, together with overthicknesses extending from the edge of the mask and over distances that may be larger than its size.

Uptake kinetics of spontaneously emulsified microdroplets at an air-liquid interface.

Understanding the transfers occurring at the interfaces between emulsions and air is required to predict the properties of foamed emulsions, used for example as antifoaming lubricants or for oil extraction. Whereas bubbling oil-in-water emulsions have been studied in details, oil-in-oil emulsions have received less attention. We consider a phase-separating mixture of three oils being Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), decane and cyclopentanol.

Foaming of Binary Mixtures: Link with the Nonlinear Behavior of Surface Tension in Asymmetric Mixtures.

The lifetimes of single bubbles or foams that are formed in mixtures of liquids can be several orders of magnitude larger than the ones formed in pure liquids. We recently demonstrated that this enhanced stability results from differences between bulk and interfacial concentrations in the mixture, which induce a thickness dependence of the surface tension in liquid films, and thus a stabilizing Marangoni effect. Concentration differences may be associated with nonlinear variations of surface tension with composition and we further investigate their link with foamability of binary mixtures.

Modification of the Fluctuation Dynamics of Ultrathin Wetting Films.

We report on the effect of intermolecular forces on the fluctuations of supported liquid films. Using an optically induced thermal gradient, we form nanometer-thin films of wetting liquids on glass substrates, where van der Waals forces are balanced by thermocapillary forces. We show that the fluctuation dynamics of the film interface is strongly modified by intermolecular forces at lower frequencies.

Spinodal stratification in micellar films between oil and silica.

We report on the thinning mechanisms of supported films of surfactant (nTAB) solutions above the critical micellar concentration. The films are formed by pressing an oil drop immersed in an aqueous surfactant solution on a silica surface. Depending on the length of the carbon chain of the surfactant and its concentration, two modes of destabilization of the stratified films are observed.

Dramatic Slowing Down of Oil/Water/Silica Contact Line Dynamics Driven by Cationic Surfactant Adsorption on the Solid.

We report on the contact line dynamics of a triple-phase system silica/oil/water. When oil advances onto silica within a water film squeezed between oil and silica, a rim forms in water and recedes at constant velocity. We evidence a sharp (three orders of magnitude) decrease of the contact line velocity upon the addition of cationic surfactants above a threshold concentration, which is slightly smaller than the critical micellar concentration.

Understanding Frothing of Liquid Mixtures: A Surfactantlike Effect at the Origin of Enhanced Liquid Film Lifetimes.

The formation of froth in mixtures of liquids is well documented, particularly in oil mixtures. However, in nonvolatile liquids and in the absence of surface-active molecules, the origin of increased liquid film lifetimes had not been identified. We suggest a stabilizing mechanism resulting from the nonlinear variations of the surface tension of a liquid mixture with its composition.

Dual Marangoni effects and detection of traces of surfactants.

We report controlled and tunable Marangoni flows resulting from concentration gradients that are induced by placing a droplet of volatile solute above the surface of a liquid. Condensation of the solute at the liquid surface results in a surface tension gradient that drives a permanent flow of surface velocity up to a few centimeters per second. Depending on the sign of the variation of surface tension with solute concentration, inward or outward surface flows can be obtained.

Water film squeezed between oil and solid: drainage towards stabilization by disjoining pressure.

The spontaneous drainage of aqueous solutions of salt squeezed between an oil drop and a glass surface is studied experimentally. The thickness profile of the film is measured in space and time by reflection interference microscopy. As the film thins down, three regimes are identified: a capillary dominated regime, a mixed capillary and disjoining pressure regime, and a disjoining pressure dominated regime.

Understanding the role of molar mass and stirring in polymer dissolution.

When a dry soluble polymer is put in contact with a large quantity of solvent, it swells and forms a transient gel, and eventually, yields a dilute solution of polymers. Everyday lab experience shows that when the molar mass is large, namely tens of times larger than entanglement mass, this dissolution process is slow and difficult and may require stirring. Here, in agreement with previous results, we found that the time needed to turn a dry grain into a dilute solution is not limited by water diffusion in the glassy or semi-crystalline dry polymer, but rather by the life-time of the transient gel made of entangled chains.

Control of particle morphology in the spray drying of colloidal suspensions.

Powders of nanoparticles are volatile, i.e. easily disperse in air, which makes their handling difficult.

Wetting of polymers by their solvents.

We review the studies on the wetting of soluble polymeric substrates by their solvents, both in the literature and conducted in our group in the past decade. When a droplet of solvent spreads on a soluble polymer layer, its wetting angle can strongly vary with the contact line velocity even at capillary numbers smaller than unity, in contrast to non-soluble substrates. The solvent content in the polymer is a key parameter for the spreading dynamics; that content is set by the initial conditions, but also by the transfers occurring from the droplet to the polymer layer during spreading.

Boundary Condition in Liquid Thin Films Revealed through the Thermal Fluctuations of Their Free Surfaces.

We investigate the properties of nanometric liquid films with a new noninvasive technique. We measure the spontaneous thermal fluctuations of the free surfaces of liquids to probe their hydrodynamic boundary condition at a solid wall. The surface fluctuations of a silicon oil film could be described with a no-slip boundary condition for film thicknesses down to 20 nm.

Controlling the buckling instability of drying droplets of suspensions through colloidal interactions.

The present study focuses on the drying of droplets of colloidal suspensions using the Leidenfrost effect. At the end of drying, grains show different morphologies: cups or spheres depending on the ionic strength or zeta potential of the initial suspension. High ionic strengths and low absolute zeta potential values lead to spherical morphologies.

Surface fluctuations of liquids confined on flat and patterned solid substrates.

We report experimental measurements of the surface fluctuations of micron-thick oil films spread onto a solid substrate. We use a recently developed optical technique based on the measurement of the deflection of a laser beam triggered by changes in the local surface slope. When the liquid is spread on a flat substrate, fluctuation dynamics slow down as the thickness is decreased, in quantitative agreement with previous predictions.

Glass transition accelerates the spreading of polar solvents on a soluble polymer.

We study the wetting of polymer layers by polar solvents. As previously observed, when a droplet of solvent spreads, both its contact angle and velocity decrease with time as a result of solvent transfers from the droplet to the substrate. We show that, when the polymer is initially glassy, the angle decreases steeply for a given value of the velocity, Ug.

Dynamic wetting on a thin film of soluble polymer: effects of nonlinearities in the sorption isotherm.

The wetting dynamics of a solvent on a soluble substrate interestingly results from the rates of the solvent transfers into the substrate. When a supported film of a hydrosoluble polymer with thickness e is wet by a spreading droplet of water with instantaneous velocity U, the contact angle is measured to be inversely proportionate to the product of thickness and velocity, eU, over two decades. As for many hydrosoluble polymers, the polymer we used (a polysaccharide) has a strongly nonlinear sorption isotherm φ(a(w)), where φ is the volume fraction of water in the polymer and aw is the activity of water.

Two beam surface fluctuation specular reflection spectroscopy.

In surface fluctuation specular reflection spectroscopy (SFSRS) deflections of a specularly reflected laser beam are used to characterize thermally excited surface waves. Here we report on a new two beam version of SFSRS in which the deflections of two reflected laser beams from separate locations on a surface are correlated. We demonstrate that this new two beam SFSRS technique can be used to determine directly the power spectrum of height fluctuation of thermally excited surface waves over a large range of both frequencies and wavevectors.

Real-time electrochemical monitoring of isothermal helicase-dependent amplification of nucleic acids.

We described an electrochemical method to monitor in real-time the isothermal helicase-dependent amplification of nucleic acids. The principle of detection is simple and well-adapted to the development of portable, easy-to-use and inexpensive nucleic acids detection technologies. It consists of monitoring a decrease in the electrochemical current response of a reporter DNA intercalating redox probe during the isothermal DNA amplification.