The dynamic spreading of nanofluids on solid surfaces - Role of the nanofilm structural disjoining pressure

Abstract

Nanofluids comprising nanoparticle suspensions in liquids have significant industrial applications. Prior work performed in our laboratory on the spreading of an aqueous film containing nanoparticles displacing an oil droplet has clearly revealed that the structural disjoining pressure arises due to the layering of the nanoparticles normal to the confining plane of the film with the wedge profile. The pressure drives the nanofluid in the wedge film and the nanofluid spreads. We observed two distinct contact lines: the inner contact line, where the structural disjoining pressure dominates the Laplace capillary pressure, and the outer contact line, given by the Laplace equation prediction extrapolated to the solid substrate where the structural disjoining pressure contribution is negligible. We report here our results of the effects of several parameters, such as the nanoparticle concentration, liquid salinity, temperature, and the substrate contact angle, on the motion of the two contact lines and their effects on the detachment of the oil droplet. We also studied the equilibrated and non-equilibrated oil/nanofluid phases, the time of adhesion of the oil droplet on the solid substrate and the drying time of the substrate. We employed the frictional model to predict the outer contact line velocity and our previous theoretical model (based on the structural disjoining pressure) to predict the inner contact line velocity. The theoretical predictions agreed quite well with the experimentally measured values of the velocities. Our experimental results showed that the motion of the inner contact line was accelerated by the increase in the nanoparticle concentration, temperature, and hydrophilicity of the substrate for the pre-equilibrated oil/nanofluid phases, which resulted in the faster detachment of the oil droplet. The speed of the two contact lines decreased upon the increase in the drying time of the substrate and the oil adhesion time on the substrate. The present results provide new insights into the complex spreading behavior of nanofluids on solid substrates.

Keywords: Contact angle; Enhanced oil recovery; Oil detachment; Polymeric nanoparticles; Structural disjoining pressure.