Articles techniques et présentations

Surfaces with water contact angle greater than 150º are super-hydrophobic in nature and possess extraordinary water repelling properties. Various researches on wettability of textured surfaces in recent years have shown that texturing surfaces with micron-sized and nanosized patterns improves their hydrophobicity to a great extent. This report aims at optimizing the dimensions of square-pillared arrayed textures to achieve maximum contact angle, and the effect on rounding the edges, and changing droplet size; together with simulation of bulk water flow through micro-channels having textured walls. Comparison has been made between smooth and textured surfaces in terms of pressure drop reduction and slip-length, in order to investigate the effects of textures on hydrophobicity. Pressure drop reductions up to 19%, obtained from simulations suggest that significant energy saving can be done in micro-fluidics using textures