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Updated: Dec 31, 2025

Fabrication and Visualization of Capillary Bridges in Slit Pore Geometry
Published on: January 9, 2014
Characterization of interface properties of fluids by evaporation of a capillary bridge
Loïc Tadrist1, L Motte2, O Rahli2
1Microfluidics Lab, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Liege, Allée de la découverte 9, Liège 4000 Belgium.
Abstract:
The surface properties between two non-miscible fluids are key elements to understand mass transfer, chemistry and bio-chemistry at interfaces. In this paper, surface properties are investigated in evaporating and non-evaporating conditions. A capillary bridge between two large plates (similar to a Hele-Shaw cell) is considered. The temporal evolution of surface forces and mass transfers due to evaporation of the liquid are measured. The force depends on surface properties of the substrate. It is adhesive in the wetting case and repulsive in the non-wetting case. The force is also shown to depend linearly on the volume of the capillary bridge F ∝ V 0 and inversely to the height of the bridge. Modelling is performed to characterize both surface force and evaporation properties of the capillary bridge. The evaporation is shown to be diffusion driven and is decoupled from the bridge mechanics.
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