Viscous-capillary entrainment on bioinspired millimetric structure for sustained liquid transfer

Abstract

Liquid entrainment with a solid architecture passing through the fluid-fluid interface is ubiquitous and widely used in industrial processes as a liquid transfer method. Besides liquid properties, solid structures play a core role in entrainment. Although the influence of its macroscopic curvatures and microscale roughness has attracted years of research, the effect and potential of the commonly seen millimetric structures have not been sufficiently explored and exploited. Here, we demonstrate enhanced liquid entrainment on the millimetric structured surface by the co-effect of viscosity and capillarity for sustained liquid transfer of small deviation, including high-quantity uptake and practically operational drainage with small and relatively uniform droplet dripping time of varied liquid viscosities. With the overall process of viscous-capillary entrainment, we achieve stable cyclical arrayed liquid transport, showing its potential for sustained liquid transfer in intractable situations in laboratory, industry, and even daily life.