This study focuses on electrowetting using two immmiscible liquids on a dielectric coating. It is demonstrated that low contact angle of oil on the hydrophobic surfaces is a key parameter to obtain a low hysteresis system, below 2 degrees . On the basis of these results, three aspects of the wetting properties have been studied: the influence of the surface hydrophobic properties, the design of...

Magnesian limestone is a key construction component of many historic buildings that is under constant attack from environmental pollutants notably by oxides of sulfur via acid rain, particulate matter sulfate and gaseous SO(2) emissions. Hydrophobic surface coatings offer a potential route to protect existing stonework in cultural heritage sites, however, many available coatings act by blocking...

Application of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) in bioanalysis has been limited due to its nonspecific adsorption onto hydrophobic surface in spite of favorable properties such as higher chemical/biological stability, specificity and binding affinity towards target nucleic acids compared to natural nucleic acid probes. Herein, we employed BSA in PNA application to enhance the stability of PNA in hydr...

Nanoscopic and microscopic water droplets and ice crystals embedded in liquid hydrophobic surroundings are key components of aerosols, rocks, oil fields and the human body. The chemical properties of such droplets critically depend on the interfacial structure of the water droplet. Here we report the surface structure of 200 nm-sized water droplets in mixtures of hydrophobic oils and surfactant...

We investigate the aggregation of amphiphilic molecules by adapting the two-state Muller-Lee-Graziano model for water, in which a solvent-induced hydrophobic interaction is included implicitly. We study the formation of various types of micelle as a function of the distribution of hydrophobic regions at the molecular surface. Successive substitution of nonpolar surfaces by polar ones demonstrat...

With molecular simulation for water and a tunable hydrophobic substrate, we apply the instantaneous interface construction [A. P. Willard and D. Chandler, "Instantaneous liquid interfaces," J. Phys. Chem. B 114, 1954-1958 (2010)] to examine the similarity between a water-vapor interface and a water-hydrophobic surface interface. We show that attractive interactions between a hydrophobic surface...

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. With molecular simulation for water and a tunable hydrophobic substrate, we apply the instantaneous interface construction [A.] to examine the similarity between a water-vapor interface and a water-hydrophobic surface interface. The intrinsic interface refers to molecular struc...

The presence of nanobubbles-as imaged with tapping-mode atomic force microscopy-is controlled using nanopatterned surfaces possessing repeating patterns of polystyrene (hydrophobic domains) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (hydrophilic domains). For nanobubbles to be present, we find that, in addition to controlling the degree of surface hydrophobicity, it is important for the spatial dimensions o...

A new class of alkyland perfluoroalkyl-containing urea and amide derivatives was synthesized from amino acid derivatives. Most of these compounds showed excellent gelation behavior in organic solvents at low concentrations. A few organogelators selected from the initial screening were used for surface modification of fibrous substrates to create hydrophobic and oleophobic composites. The hydrop...