Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Chemistry

PDF

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

2015

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Effect Of Surface Omniphobicity On Drying By Forced Convection, Madani A. Khan, Jeffrey Alston, Andrew Guenthner Aug 2015

Effect Of Surface Omniphobicity On Drying By Forced Convection, Madani A. Khan, Jeffrey Alston, Andrew Guenthner

STAR Program Research Presentations

Low energy surfaces can strongly repel both oil and water. Recently these surfaces have been fabricated on various substrates including fabric, aluminum, stainless steel and many other materials. In this experiment we explore the use of low energy surface deposition on aluminum alloy, stainless steel and silicon substrates, to enhance the drying rate of liquids removed from the surface by forced convection. We control surface roughness by substrate abrasion and by the growth of Al2O3 nanograss to enhance liquid repellence by use of a hierarchical texture. Liquid repellence of the substrates is measured by contact angles of …


A Lego® Brewster Angle Microscope For Quantitative Monolayer Film Analysis, Nicholas Benz Jul 2015

A Lego® Brewster Angle Microscope For Quantitative Monolayer Film Analysis, Nicholas Benz

Physics

In order to study single-molecule thick films and their phase behavior we built a Brewster Angle Microscope (BAM). BAM’s are inherently expensive due to their accuracy and precision. We built a fully functional BAM using Lego® Mindstorm® kits for the fraction of the price of a commercial BAM. And by utilizing the 10µm patented Lego® tolerance, comparable accuracy was attained. The BAM was mounted to a Langmuir-trough and will be used for laboratory experiments for optics and physical chemistry along with research on lung surfactant and on liquid crystals.