Project: Flows over liquid-infused surfaces
Supervisors: Ory Schnitzer (Imperial) & Demetrios Papageorgiou (Imperial)
Project Description:
Slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) are microstructured surfaces designed to spontaneously absorb a lubricant through wicking. These surfaces exhibit exceptional wetting and hydrodynamic properties, significantly enhancing flows and droplet mobility. Experimental groups and companies such as Adaptive Surface Technologies and LiquiGlide have developed SLIPS demonstrating remarkable water-repelency, self-cleaning and self-healing capabilities, paving the way to numerous applications—particularly in sustainability and climate solutions. Indeed, current applied research is focused on leveraging this technology to: (i) reduce energy consumption through minimising hydrodynamic resistance across scales—from microfluidic channels to ships; (ii) advance carbon capture technologies, by utilising reacting infused liquids; (iii) improve heat management in microelectronics, by amplifying convection; (iv) optimise water collection in arid regions, by promoting condensation and droplet movement; and (v) combat marine bio-fouling.
While the wetting properties of SLIPS are well understood, at least under static conditions, the theory describing their hydrodynamic behaviour remains underdeveloped and largely empirical. This project aims to mathematically model and analye these multiphase surfaces from first principles, focusing on fundamental hydrodynamic problems defining their effective slipperiness and their influence on drop mobility and flow stability. The analyses will employ asymptotic methods alongside numerical computations and hydrodynamic stability theory.
