Measurement of Capillary Radius and Contact Angle within Porous Media

The pore radius (i.e., capillary radius) and contact angle determine the capillary pressure generated in a porous medium. The most common method to determine these two parameters is through measurement of the capillary pressure generated by a reference liquid (i.e., a liquid with near-zero contact angle) and a test liquid. The rate of rise technique, commonly used to determine the capillary pressure, results in significant uncertainties. In this study, we utilize a recently developed technique for independently measuring the capillary pressure and permeability to determine the equivalent minimum capillary radii and contact angle of water within micropillar wick structures. In this method, the experimentally measured dryout threshold of a wick structure at different wicking lengths is fit to Darcy's law to extract the maximum capillary pressure generated by the test liquid. The equivalent minimum capillary radii of different wick geometries are determined by measuring the maximum capillary pressures generated using n-hexane as the working fluid. It is found that the equivalent minimum capillary radius is dependent on the diameter of pillars and the spacing between pillars. The equivalent capillary radii of micropillar wicks determined using the new method are found to be up to 7 times greater than the current geometry-based first-order estimates. The contact angle subtended by water at the walls of the micropillars is determined by measuring the capillary pressure generated by water within the arrays and the measured capillary radii for the different geometries. This mean contact angle of water is determined to be 54.7°.