Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Dispersion Of Particles On Liquid Surfaces, Sathishkumar Gurupatham

Dissertations

When small particles (e.g., flour, pollen, etc.) come in contact with a liquid surface, they immediately disperse. The dispersion can occur so quickly that it appears explosive, especially for small particles on the surface of mobile liquids like water. This explosive dispersion is the consequence of capillary force pulling particles into the interface causing them to accelerate to a relatively large velocity. The maximum velocity increases with decreasing particle size; for nanometer-sized particles (e.g., viruses and proteins), the velocity on an air-water interface can be as large as 47 m/s. They also oscillate at a relatively high frequency about their …