Osmotic evolution of composite liquid marbles

Pritam Kumar Roy; Irina Legchenkova; Shraga Shoval; Leonid A Dombrovsky; Edward Bormashenko

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.055

Osmotic evolution of composite liquid marbles

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Jun 15:592:167-173. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.055. Epub 2021 Feb 19.

Authors

Pritam Kumar Roy¹, Irina Legchenkova¹, Shraga Shoval², Leonid A Dombrovsky³, Edward Bormashenko⁴

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ariel University, P.O.B. 3, 407000 Ariel, Israel.
² Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering, Ariel University, P.O.B. 3, 407000 Ariel, Israel.
³ X-BIO Institute, University of Tyumen, 6 Volodarskogo St, Tyumen 625003, Russia; Heat Transfer Department, Joint Institute for High Temperatures, 17A Krasnokazarmennaya St, Moscow 111116, Russia.
⁴ Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ariel University, P.O.B. 3, 407000 Ariel, Israel. Electronic address: edward@ariel.ac.il.

PMID: 33662822
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.02.055

Abstract

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that the reported evolution (growth) of composite water marbles filled with saline water and coated with lycopodium dispersed in a thin layer of silicone oil is due to the osmotic mass transfer. The hypothesis is supported by the semi-empirical model of osmotic growth of small liquid marbles floating on distilled water.

Experiments: Saline composite, silicone oil-coated marbles floating on distilled water grew with time; whereas, composite marbles filled with distilled water floating on aqueous solutions of NaCl lost mass with time and shrunk. However, composite liquid marbles filled with saline water and floating on aqueous solutions of NaCl remained stable during 25 h of the laboratory experiment.

Findings: The reported findings are reasonably attributed to osmotic mass transport through the thin silicon layer filled with lycopodium particles coating the marbles, acting as an osmotic membrane. This is supported by the suggested model for the osmotic growth of marbles.

Keywords: Floating; Liquid marbles; Liquid membrane; Osmotic mass transfer; Osmotic membrane.