<i>In situ</i> small angle x-ray scattering measurements of the filling process of polyisobutylene and poly-ϵ-caprolactone in ion track etched polycarbonate nanopores

Engel, Miriam; Stühn, Bernd

doi:10.1063/1.3429312

Cited by 18 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…For glycerol, a fluid with comparably small molecules, we find a sharp, step-like fluid profile. By contrast the imbibition with the macromolecular PDMS is significantly affected by precursor film spreading, in agreement with simulation studies [24], experiments at planar surfaces [8] and in tubular nanopores [20,21] for polymeric liquids.…”

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confidence: 87%

“…However, the extreme challenges to monitor liquid fronts in nanoscale geometries have resulted in only a few experimental studies on imbibition fronts in nanoporous structures [11,[19][20][21][22][23]. Engel and Stühn [20] studied imbibition kinetics of polyisobutylene and poly-caprolactone in polycarbonate nanopores by time resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). For both fluids a precursor film is inferred on short time scales, followed by a much longer complete filling of the pores by an advancing meniscus.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals

et al. 2020

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When a macroscopic droplet spreads, a thin precursor film of liquid moves ahead of the advancing liquid-solid-vapor contact line. Whereas this phenomenon has been explored extensively for planar solid substrates, its presence in nanostructured geometries has barely been studied so far, despite its importance for many natural and technological fluid transport processes. Here we use porous photonic crystals in silicon to resolve by light interferometry capillarity-driven spreading of liquid fronts in pores of few nanometers in radius. Upon spatiotemporal rescaling the fluid profiles collapse on master curves indicating that all imbibition fronts follow a square-root-of-time broadening dynamics. For the simple liquid (glycerol) a sharp front with a widening typical of Lucas-Washburn capillary-rise dynamics in a medium with pore-size distribution occurs. By contrast, for a polymer (PDMS) a precursor film moving ahead of the main menisci entirely alters the nature of the nanoscale transport, in agreement with predictions of computer simulations.

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confidence: 87%

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confidence: 99%

Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals

et al. 2020

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“…The lowest scattering curve in each figure belongs to the scattering of pure polycarbonate and the lines through the data points are fits of model calculations discussed in Ref. [440]. As time continues, the scattered intensity decreases due to contrast reduction.…”

Section: Rheology and Spontaneous Imbibition Of Liquidsmentioning

confidence: 88%

Soft matter in hard confinement: phase transition thermodynamics, structure, texture, diffusion and flow in nanoporous media

Huber

2015

J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

250

287

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Spatial confinement in nanoporous media affects the structure, thermodynamics and mobility of molecular soft matter often markedly. This article reviews thermodynamic equilibrium phenomena, such as physisorption, capillary condensation, crystallisation, self-diffusion, and structural phase transitions as well as selected aspects of the emerging field of spatially confined, non-equilibrium physics, i.e. the rheology of liquids, capillarity-driven flow phenomena, and imbibition front broadening in nanoporous materials. The observations in the nanoscale systems are related to the corresponding bulk phenomenologies. The complexity of the confined molecular species is varied from simple building blocks, like noble gas atoms, normal alkanes and alcohols to liquid crystals, polymers, ionic liquids, proteins and water. Mostly, experiments with mesoporous solids of alumina, gold, carbon, silica, and silicon with pore diameters ranging from a few up to 50 nm are presented. The observed peculiarities of nanopore-confined condensed matter are also discussed with regard to applications. A particular emphasis is put on texture formation upon crystallisation in nanoporous media, a topic both of high fundamental interest and of increasing nanotechnological importance, e.g. for the synthesis of organic/inorganic hybrid materials by melt infiltration, the usage of nanoporous solids in crystal nucleation or in template-assisted electrochemical deposition of nano structures.

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“…Residual deviation from pure imbibition behaviour can be linked to the evolution of the outside meniscus during the first tens of seconds. Furthermore, the presence of precursor films spreading ahead of the invasion front of nanopores may also contribute to an initial transient behavior [41,42]. Figure 2 presents a plot of the imbibed mass, m, versus the square root of the time, t 1/2 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Switchable imbibition in nanoporous gold

et al. 2014

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Spontaneous imbibition enables the elegant propelling of nano-flows because of the dominance of capillarity at small length scales. The imbibition kinetics are, however, solely determined by the static host geometry, the capillarity, and the fluidity of the imbibed liquid. This makes active control particularly challenging. Here we show for aqueous electrolyte imbibition in nanoporous gold that the fluid flow can be reversibly switched on and off through electric potential control of the solid–liquid interfacial tension, that is, we can accelerate the imbibition front, stop it, and have it proceed at will. Simultaneous measurements of the mass flux and the electrical current allow us to document simple scaling laws for the imbibition kinetics, and to explore the charge transport in the metallic nanopores. Our findings demonstrate that the high electric conductivity along with the pathways for fluid/ionic transport render nanoporous gold a versatile, accurately controllable electrocapillary pump and flow sensor for minute amounts of liquids with exceptionally low operating voltages.

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In situ small angle x-ray scattering measurements of the filling process of polyisobutylene and poly-ϵ-caprolactone in ion track etched polycarbonate nanopores

Cited by 18 publications

References 27 publications

Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals

Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals

Soft matter in hard confinement: phase transition thermodynamics, structure, texture, diffusion and flow in nanoporous media

Switchable imbibition in nanoporous gold

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