Is there a relation between electrical field and surface tension? I work on MD and I want reduce surface tension of liquid. Is there any method for it?
Hi Hamid! Interesting question! If you apply an external field at a liquid-solid or liquid-vapor interface, there's certainly a change in the surface tension, but this depends on the difference between the dielectric properties of the two phases in some nontrivial way, which I have never thought about. Did you find any references on this?
If you just want to control surface tension you should of course use surfactants (chemicals) to do this.
PS. I checked with Google and found several papers on this immediately - apparently E-field can be used to efficiently reduce surface tension. The following abstract is quite interesting (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=559306&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5593069):
"it has been discussed in previous papers that the surface tension of some liquids decreases during voltage application, and that this could be the main mechanism for dispersion of the liquid. However, no experimental results have been reported except for a few papers. In the present study, the vibrating jet method was employed because this is the only method available to measure surface tension during voltage application without contacting the liquid surface. A simple procedure was developed which used a parallel sheet of laser light to detect the liquid jet waves. Surface tension reduction due to applied voltage was proportional to the square of the voltage. The measured values agreed fairly well with theoretical predictions when the electrical conductivity >10-2 S/n. The surface tension reduction calculated using the measured electric charge was also proportional to the square of the applied voltage. The mechanism causing surface tension reduction during voltage application was found to be the electric charge existing on the liquid surface."
Hi Hamid! Interesting question! If you apply an external field at a liquid-solid or liquid-vapor interface, there's certainly a change in the surface tension, but this depends on the difference between the dielectric properties of the two phases in some nontrivial way, which I have never thought about. Did you find any references on this?
If you just want to control surface tension you should of course use surfactants (chemicals) to do this.
PS. I checked with Google and found several papers on this immediately - apparently E-field can be used to efficiently reduce surface tension. The following abstract is quite interesting (http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=559306&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5593069):
"it has been discussed in previous papers that the surface tension of some liquids decreases during voltage application, and that this could be the main mechanism for dispersion of the liquid. However, no experimental results have been reported except for a few papers. In the present study, the vibrating jet method was employed because this is the only method available to measure surface tension during voltage application without contacting the liquid surface. A simple procedure was developed which used a parallel sheet of laser light to detect the liquid jet waves. Surface tension reduction due to applied voltage was proportional to the square of the voltage. The measured values agreed fairly well with theoretical predictions when the electrical conductivity >10-2 S/n. The surface tension reduction calculated using the measured electric charge was also proportional to the square of the applied voltage. The mechanism causing surface tension reduction during voltage application was found to be the electric charge existing on the liquid surface."
This paper has some implications; less effectivity when in a saline pore water..
Article The study of surface wetting, nanobubbles and boundary slip ...
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