Beng Hau Tan

Resolving the Pinning Force of Nanobubbles with Optical Microscopy

Many of the remarkable properties of surface nanobubbles, such as unusually small contact angles and long lifetimes, are related to the force that pins them onto their substrates. This pinning force is yet to be quantified experimentally. Here, surface-attached nanobubbles are pulled with an atomic force microscope tip while their mechanical responses are observed with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. We estimate that a pinning force on the order of 0.1μN is required to unpin a nanobubble from its substrate. The maximum force that the tip can exert on the nanobubble is limited by the stability of the neck pulled from the bubble and is enhanced by the hydrophobicity of the tip.

Graphene Nanobubbles Produced by Water Splitting

Graphene nanobubbles are of significant interest due to their ability to trap mesoscopic volumes of gas for various applications in nanoscale engineering. However, conventional protocols to produce such bubbles are relatively elaborate and require specialized equipment to subject graphite samples to high temperatures or pressures. Here, we demonstrate the formation of graphene nanobubbles between layers of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) with electrolysis. Although this process can also lead to the formation of gaseous surface nanobubbles on top of the substrate, the two types of bubbles can easily be distinguished using atomic force microscopy. We estimated the Youngs modulus, internal pressure, and the thickness of the top membrane of the graphene nanobubbles. The hydrogen storage capacity can reach ∼5 wt % for a graphene nanobubble with a membrane that is four layers thick. The simplicity of our protocol paves the way for such graphitic nanobubbles to be utilized for energy storage and industrial applications on a wide scale.

Surface Nanobubbles Are Stabilized by Hydrophobic Attraction

The remarkably long lifetime of surface nanobubbles has perplexed researchers for two decades. The current understanding is that both contact line pinning and supersaturation of the ambient liquid are strictly required for the stability of nanobubbles, yet experiments show nanobubbles surviving in open systems and undersaturated environments. We find that this discrepancy can be addressed if the effects of an attractive hydrophobic potential at the solid substrate on the spatial distribution of the gas concentration is taken into account. We also show that, in our model, only substrate pinning is strictly required for stabilization; while hydrophobicity and supersaturation both aid stability, neither is mandatory-the absence of one can be compensated by an excess of the other.

Growth and wetting of water droplet condensed between micron-sized particles and substrate.

We study heterogeneous condensation growth of water droplets on micron-sized particles resting on a level substrate. Through numerical simulations on equilibrium droplet profiles, we find multiple wetting states towards complete wetting of the particle. Specifically, a partially wetting droplet could undergo a spontaneous transition to complete wetting during condensation growth, for contact angles above a threshold minimum. In addition, we find a competitive wetting behavior between the particle and the substrate, and interestingly, a reversal of the wetting dependence on contact angles during late stages of droplet growth. Using quasi-steady assumption, we simulate a growing droplet under a constant condensation flux, and the results are in good agreement with our experimental observations. As a geometric approximation for particle clusters, we propose and validate a pancake model, and with it, show that a particle cluster has greater wetting tendency compared to a single particle. Together, our results indicate a strong interplay between contact angle, capillarity and geometry during condensation growth.