A deformed droplet may leap from a solid substrate, impelled to detach through the conversion of surface energy into kinetic energy that arises as it relaxes to a sphere. Electrowetting provides a means of preparing a droplet on a substrate for lift-off. When a voltage is applied between a water droplet and a dielectric-coated electrode, the wettability of the substrate increases in a controlled way, leading to the spreading of the droplet. Once the voltage is released, the droplet recoils, due to a sudden excess in surface energy, and droplet detachment may follow. The process of drop detachment and lift-off, prevalent in both biology and micro-engineering, has to date been considered primarily in terms of qualitative scaling arguments for idealized superhydrophobic substrates. We here consider the eletrically-induced ejection of droplets from substrates of finite wettability and analyze the process quantitatively. We compare experiments to numerical simulations and analyze how the energy conversion efficiency is affected by the applied voltage and the intrinsic contact angle of the droplet on the substrate. Our results indicate that the finite wettability of the substrate significantly affects the detachment dynamics, and so provide new rationale for the previously reported large critical radius for drop ejection from micro-textured substrates.

We present simulations of coalescence in the presence of surfactant. We consider a fluid-fluid interface where we track surfactant concentration. Our model is applicable to a soap bubble merging with a suspended soap film and to a surfactant covered liquid drop merging with a reservoir. In both cases, we determine the regime in which coalescence is only partial. Along with viscous effects, represented by the Ohnesorge number, the elasticity of the surface tension relative to the surfactant concentration is seen to play a key role and exhibits a surprising nonmonotonic influence, for which we present a physical mechanism. The effects of gravity are also simulated, along with effects of differing initial conditions, as well as those of uneven initial surfactant concentration, as are likely to arise in physical applications. We describe how the presence of surfactants can influence a coalescence cascade.

The nonmetal cation polyborate salt of stoichiometry [H(2)en](2)[B(11)O(18)(OH)]·7H(2)O is obtained from the reaction of 1,2-diaminoethane and boric acid (1:5 ratio) in H(2)O/MeOH. An X-ray crystallographic study of the product reveals that the polyborate moiety is composed of two isolated hydrated polyborate anions: [B(4)O(5)(OH)(4)](2-) and [B(7)O(9)(OH)(5)](2-). The structure is templated by the cations with the anions forming a supramolecular H-bonded network, augmented by additional H-bonds involving the waters of crystallization and the cations.

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