Non-Newtonian Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surfaces: NN-SLIPS

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When a liquid comes into contact with a solid surface, its interface can be pinned by surface texture, giving rise to the ubiquitous phenomenon of the contact angle hysteresis. The presence of Contact Angle Hysteresis is a challenge for liquid manipulation and affects many practical applications ranging from self-cleaning coatings to microfluidics and oil recovery. Inspired by the Nepenthes pitcher plant, SLIPS (Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces) have been recently introduced. Their enhanced liquid mobility relies on the presence of a lubricating fluid between the liquid and solid, reducing the contact to the solid surface, and therefore the driving force required for liquid manipulation. Besides impacting the static friction, lubricating fluids impact liquid motion also through the presence of an additional fluid layer and the creation of a wetting ridge, where viscous dissipation mostly takes place. The growing interest in SLIPS, lead to applications in areas such as food packaging and biomedical devices, which involve fluids with complex (non-Newtonian) rheological properties. Despite that, to date most studies of SLIPS address mainly equilibrium properties or dynamics of simple (Newtonian) liquids. In contrast, it is expected that the combination of solid texture, shape of liquid interfaces and complex fluid rheology will play a dominant role in liquid motion. This project aims at exploring the impact of non-Newtonian liquid rheology on the Physics of SLIPS. With the aid of computational fluid dynamics simulations, based on a recently developed ternary lattice Boltzmann method, this project will elucidate the dynamics of complex liquids (both flowing and infusing) on SLIPS and develop new key principles combining the geometry of solid textures and complex liquid properties in the design of new smart materials.