Mass transfer during drying of colloidal film beneath a patterned mask that contains a hexagonal array of holes

Abstract

We simulated an experiment in which a thin colloidal sessile droplet is allowed to dry out on a horizontal hydrophilic surface when a mask just above the droplet predominantly allows evaporation from the droplet free surface directly beneath the holes in the mask [Harris D J, Hu H, Conrad J C and Lewis J A 2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 148301]. We considered one particular case when centre-to-centre spacing between the holes is much less than the drop diameter. In our model, advection, diffusion, and sedimentation were taken into account. FlexPDE was utilized to solve an advection-diffusion equation using the finite element method. The simulation demonstrated that the colloidal particles accumulate below the holes as the solvent evaporates. Diffusion can reduce this accumulation.