Energy of a Drop Required to Break a Liquid Film

Langmuir. 2021 Sep 7;37(35):10433-10438. doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c01147. Epub 2021 Aug 24.

Abstract

An external disturbance can destabilize and break a liquid film on a nonwettable surface. Previous studies focused on evaluating critical film thickness for a spontaneous breakup, but the required energy has been unknown. We experimentally found that the energy of a drop to break a liquid film is an order of magnitude more than that predicted by a free energy balance. Here, we show how to evaluate the energy needed to rupture a liquid film by considering the formation of a crater with a critical size.