Sharif Digital Repository

A complete cycle of droplet nucleation, growth, coalescence and jumping on different textured hydrophobic and superhydrophobic surfaces is studied for the first time, using a 2-D double distribution function thermal lattice Boltzmann method. First, droplet nucleation mechanism on smooth and rough surfaces is studied in detail. The results reveal the presence of cooled vapor layer instability in the condensation on completely smooth surfaces. However, on the rough surfaces and near the roughness a completely different mechanism is observed and the nucleation occurs on the roughness wedges. Also, the condensation on different textured surfaces with nominal contact angles θa=90°,120°,155° is... 

Electrospun porous membrane; Superhydrophilic surfaces; Superhydrophobic surfaces; Cell culture; Organ on a chip; Flexible membrane; Strong membrane; Surface modications  

onstructing of the scaffolds for cell culture applications has long been of interest for engineering researchers and biologist. In this study, a novel process is utilized for construction of suitable membrane with a high mechanical strength and appropriate surface behavior. Poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) is electrospun into fine fibers using poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as the carrier polymer in different weight ratios. Since the surface behavior of all PDMS substrates is moderately hydrophobic (120 < contact angle (CA) < 150), the electrospun membranes with higher PDMS ratios show slightly higher hydrophilicity. Direct plasma treatment is utilized to change the interfacial wettability... 

Magnetically actuated droplet manipulation offers a promising tool for biomedical and engineering applications, such as drug delivery, biochemistry, sample handling in lab-on-chip devices and tissue engineering. In this study, characteristics of an adjustable alternating magnetic field generated by a magnetic coil for droplet manipulation was investigated which enables more control on droplet transport, and it can be considered as a suitable alternative for moving magnets or an array of micro-coils. By adjusting the magnetic flux density, the duty cycle and applied magnetic frequency, the manipulation of water-based ferrofluid droplets with a bio-compatible surfactant for different volumes... 

In the present study, we employ all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the dynamic behaviors and structural properties of the native and modified cellulose chains in the bulk, aqueous, and organic media. Particular attention has been directed to the role of different hydrophobic and hydrophilic functional groups as linear and branched aliphatic and also cyclic pendent groups on the solubility and packing of the cellulose chain. The various properties related to density profile, mean squared displacement, intramolecular entropy, radius of gyration, and radial distribution function were calculated. The results showed that the chain tendency toward crystallinity decreased when... 

Nowadays, one of the biggest concerns in the world is increasing the CO2 emissions and global warming due to the over-consumption of fossil fuels. In addition, under the intense market competition, the demand for more efficient systems with higher performance and lower energy consumption has escalated. Since the drag force contributes to a considerable percentage of the energy loss and reducing the performance, a large number of studies have been conducted to improve the surface characteristics and, subsequently, declining the drag force. Making the surface superhydrophobic is one of the most effective ways for this purpose. In this work, two different superhydrophobic surfaces using SiO2... 

In the last three decades, nanoclay fillers have been increasingly used to improve the mechanical, thermal, barrier and biological properties of the polymers. Nevertheless, incorporation of clays into the hydrophobic polymer matrices leads to the formation of the microcomposites with the minimal improvement in properties. To overcome the intrinsic incompatibility between the clays and the hydrophobic polymers, clay particles are organophilized using organic modifiers. The organic modifier should be thermodynamically miscible with the polymer. In the case of the composites prepared at high temperatures, the organic modifier should also have a high thermal stability to withstand the processing... 

The current article discusses some unprecedented information about the improvement in forward osmosis (FO) performance of polyethersulfone/polyamide (PES/PA) membranes, mainly focused on water flux and selectivity along with resistance to fouling phenomenon; which itself is brought in by the introduction of pre-modified zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 MOF nanoparticles. An investigation has been conducted on ZIF-8 nanoparticles surface with hydrophilicity feature to evaluate their potential for utilization in active polyamide layer of FO membranes for the first time, free from any decrease in water flux value (when hydrophobic ZIF-8 is exploited solely) and selectivity (when mSiO2 with... 

This paper reports the fabrication of electrospun polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes/scaffolds that are suitable for three-dimensional (3D) cell culture. Through modification the ratio between PDMS and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) as carrier polymer, we report the possibility of increasing PDMS weight ratio of up to 6 for electrospinning. Increasing the PDMS content increases the fiber diameter, the pore size, and the hydrophobicity. To our best knowledge, this is the first report describing beads-free, durable and portable electrospun membrane with maximum content of PDMS suitable for cell culture applications. To show the proof-of-concept, we successfully cultured epithelial lung... 

The present study examines Alternating Current (AC) electroosmotic flows in a parallel plate microchannel subject to constant wall temperature. Numerical method consists of a central finite difference scheme for spatial terms and a forward difference scheme for the temporal term. Asymmetric boundary conditions are assumed for Poison-Boltzmann equation for determining the electric double layer (EDL) potential distribution. The potential distribution is then used to evaluate the velocity distribution. The velocity distribution is obtained by applying slip boundary conditions on the walls which accounts for probable hydrophobicity of surfaces. After determining the velocity distribution... 

A supramolecular linear-dendritic copolymer consisting of a polystyrene backbone and hanging hyperbranched polyglycerols was prepared and characterized. Host-guest interactions between β-cyclodextrin incorporated in the core of polyglycerol as a host and aromatic rings of polystyrene as guests lead to the formation of a supramolecular linear-dendritic copolymer. Supramolecules formed micelles in aqueous solutions which were able to encapsulate and transfer paclitaxel with a high loading capacity  

This paper investigates numerical simulation of one-dimensional homogeneous adiabatic gas-liquid two-phase flow in a rectangular microchannel with one boundary porous wall under the assumption of hydrophobic condition. Gas enters the microchannel with a uniform velocity and liquid is injected through the porous side wall. The present approach is to simulate water injection effects and developing mechanism of two-phase flow. The modeling and solution of the conservation equations provide pressure drop, vapor quality, void fraction and tow-phase mixture velocity for different water injection rates. The results show that velocity and pressure drop significantly perturbed when the water...