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Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of external forces like gravity.
The effect can be seen in the drawing up of liquids between the hairs of a paint-brush, in a thin tube such as a straw, in porous materials such as paper and plaster, in some non-porous materials such as clay and liquefied carbon fiber, or in a biological cell.
It occurs because of intermolecular forces between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by cohesion within the liquid) and adhesive forces between the liquid and container wall act to propel the liquid.
Capillary comes from the Latin word capillaris, meaning "of or resembling hair". The meaning stems from the tiny, hairlike diameter of a capillary.
The first recorded observation of capillary action was by Leonardo da Vinci. [1] [2] A former student of Galileo, Niccolò Aggiunti, was said to have investigated capillary action. [3] In 1660, capillary action was still a novelty to the Irish chemist Robert Boyle, when he reported that "some inquisitive French Men" had observed that when a capillary tube was dipped into water, the water would ascend to "some height in the Pipe". Boyle then reported an experiment in which he dipped a capillary tube into red wine and then subjected the tube to a partial vacuum. He found that the vacuum had no observable influence on the height of the liquid in the capillary, so the behavior of liquids in capillary tubes was due to some phenomenon different from that which governed mercury barometers. [4]
Others soon followed Boyle's lead. [5] Some (e.g., Honoré Fabri, [6] Jacob Bernoulli [7] ) thought that liquids rose in capillaries because air could not enter capillaries as easily as liquids, so the air pressure was lower inside capillaries. Others (e.g., Isaac Vossius, [8] Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, [9] Louis Carré, [10] Francis Hauksbee, [11] Josia Weitbrecht [12] ) thought that the particles of liquid were attracted to each other and to the walls of the capillary.
Although experimental studies continued during the 18th century, [13] a successful quantitative treatment of capillary action [14] was not attained until 1805 by two investigators: Thomas Young of the United Kingdom [15] and Pierre-Simon Laplace of France. [16] They derived the Young–Laplace equation of capillary action. By 1830, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss had determined the boundary conditions governing capillary action (i.e., the conditions at the liquid-solid interface). [17] In 1871, the British physicist Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) determined the effect of the meniscus on a liquid's vapor pressure—a relation known as the Kelvin equation. [18] German physicist Franz Ernst Neumann (1798–1895) subsequently determined the interaction between two immiscible liquids. [19]
Albert Einstein's first paper, which was submitted to Annalen der Physik in 1900, was on capillarity. [20] [21]
Capillary penetration in porous media shares its dynamic mechanism with flow in hollow tubes, as both processes are resisted by viscous forces. [22] Consequently, a common apparatus used to demonstrate the phenomenon is the capillary tube. When the lower end of a glass tube is placed in a liquid, such as water, a concave meniscus forms. Adhesion occurs between the fluid and the solid inner wall pulling the liquid column along until there is a sufficient mass of liquid for gravitational forces to overcome these intermolecular forces. The contact length (around the edge) between the top of the liquid column and the tube is proportional to the radius of the tube, while the weight of the liquid column is proportional to the square of the tube's radius. So, a narrow tube will draw a liquid column along further than a wider tube will, given that the inner water molecules cohere sufficiently to the outer ones.
In the built environment, evaporation limited capillary penetration is responsible for the phenomenon of rising damp in concrete and masonry, while in industry and diagnostic medicine this phenomenon is increasingly being harnessed in the field of paper-based microfluidics. [22]
In physiology, capillary action is essential for the drainage of continuously produced tear fluid from the eye. Two canaliculi of tiny diameter are present in the inner corner of the eyelid, also called the lacrimal ducts; their openings can be seen with the naked eye within the lacrymal sacs when the eyelids are everted.
Wicking is the absorption of a liquid by a material in the manner of a candle wick.
Paper towels absorb liquid through capillary action, allowing a fluid to be transferred from a surface to the towel. The small pores of a sponge act as small capillaries, causing it to absorb a large amount of fluid. Some textile fabrics are said to use capillary action to "wick" sweat away from the skin. These are often referred to as wicking fabrics, after the capillary properties of candle and lamp wicks.
Capillary action is observed in thin layer chromatography, in which a solvent moves vertically up a plate via capillary action. In this case the pores are gaps between very small particles.
Capillary action draws ink to the tips of fountain pen nibs from a reservoir or cartridge inside the pen.
With some pairs of materials, such as mercury and glass, the intermolecular forces within the liquid exceed those between the solid and the liquid, so a convex meniscus forms and capillary action works in reverse.
In hydrology, capillary action describes the attraction of water molecules to soil particles. Capillary action is responsible for moving groundwater from wet areas of the soil to dry areas. Differences in soil potential () drive capillary action in soil.
A practical application of capillary action is the capillary action siphon. Instead of utilizing a hollow tube (as in most siphons), this device consists of a length of cord made of a fibrous material (cotton cord or string works well). After saturating the cord with water, one (weighted) end is placed in a reservoir full of water, and the other end placed in a receiving vessel. The reservoir must be higher than the receiving vessel. [23] A related but simplified capillary siphon only consists of two hook-shaped stainless-steel rods, whose surface is hydrophilic, allowing water to wet the narrow grooves between them. [24] Due to capillary action and gravity, water will slowly transfer from the reservoir to the receiving vessel. This simple device can be used to water houseplants when nobody is home. This property is also made use of in the lubrication of steam locomotives: wicks of worsted wool are used to draw oil from reservoirs into delivery pipes leading to the bearings. [25]
Capillary action is seen in many plants, and plays a part in transpiration. Water is brought high up in trees by branching; evaporation at the leaves creating depressurization; probably by osmotic pressure added at the roots; and possibly at other locations inside the plant, especially when gathering humidity with air roots. [26] [27] [28]
Capillary action for uptake of water has been described in some small animals, such as Ligia exotica [29] and Moloch horridus . [30]
The height h of a liquid column is given by Jurin's law [31]
where is the liquid-air surface tension (force/unit length), θ is the contact angle, ρ is the density of liquid (mass/volume), g is the local acceleration due to gravity (length/square of time [32] ), and r is the radius of tube.
As r is in the denominator, the thinner the space in which the liquid can travel, the further up it goes. Likewise, lighter liquid and lower gravity increase the height of the column.
For a water-filled glass tube in air at standard laboratory conditions, γ = 0.0728 N/m at 20 °C, ρ = 1000 kg/m3, and g = 9.81 m/s2. Because water spreads on clean glass, the effective equilibrium contact angle is approximately zero.[ citation needed ] For these values, the height of the water column is
Thus for a 2 m (6.6 ft) radius glass tube in lab conditions given above, the water would rise an unnoticeable 0.007 mm (0.00028 in). However, for a 2 cm (0.79 in) radius tube, the water would rise 0.7 mm (0.028 in), and for a 0.2 mm (0.0079 in) radius tube, the water would rise 70 mm (2.8 in).
The product of layer thickness (d) and elevation height (h) is constant (d·h = constant), the two quantities are inversely proportional. The surface of the liquid between the planes is hyperbola.
When a dry porous medium is brought into contact with a liquid, it will absorb the liquid at a rate which decreases over time. When considering evaporation, liquid penetration will reach a limit dependent on parameters of temperature, humidity and permeability. This process is known as evaporation limited capillary penetration [22] and is widely observed in common situations including fluid absorption into paper and rising damp in concrete or masonry walls. For a bar shaped section of material with cross-sectional area A that is wetted on one end, the cumulative volume V of absorbed liquid after a time t is
where S is the sorptivity of the medium, in units of m·s−1/2 or mm·min−1/2. This time dependence relation is similar to Washburn's equation for the wicking in capillaries and porous media. [33] The quantity
is called the cumulative liquid intake, with the dimension of length. The wetted length of the bar, that is the distance between the wetted end of the bar and the so-called wet front, is dependent on the fraction f of the volume occupied by voids. This number f is the porosity of the medium; the wetted length is then
Some authors use the quantity S/f as the sorptivity. [34]
The above description is for the case where gravity and evaporation do not play a role.
Sorptivity is a relevant property of building materials, because it affects the amount of rising dampness. Some values for the sorptivity of building materials are in the table below.
Material | Sorptivity (mm·min−1/2) |
---|---|
Aerated concrete | 0.50 |
Gypsum plaster | 3.50 |
Clay brick | 1.16 |
Mortar | 0.70 |
Concrete brick | 0.20 |
Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects to float on a water surface without becoming even partly submerged.
A heat pipe is a heat-transfer device that employs phase transition to transfer heat between two solid interfaces.
In surface science, a tensiometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the surface tension of liquids or surfaces. Tensiometers are used in research and development laboratories to determine the surface tension of liquids like coatings, lacquers or adhesives. A further application field of tensiometers is the monitoring of industrial production processes like parts cleaning or electroplating.
In physics, Washburn's equation describes capillary flow in a bundle of parallel cylindrical tubes; it is extended with some issues also to imbibition into porous materials. The equation is named after Edward Wight Washburn; also known as Lucas–Washburn equation, considering that Richard Lucas wrote a similar paper three years earlier, or the Bell-Cameron-Lucas-Washburn equation, considering J.M. Bell and F.K. Cameron's discovery of the form of the equation in 1906.
The Marangoni effect is the mass transfer along an interface between two phases due to a gradient of the surface tension. In the case of temperature dependence, this phenomenon may be called thermo-capillary convection.
Drinking birds, also known as dunking birds, drinky birds, water birds, or dipping birds are toy heat engines that mimic the motions of a bird drinking from a water source. They are sometimes incorrectly considered examples of a perpetual motion device.
In 1957 John Philip introduced the term sorptivity and defined it as a measure of the capacity of the medium to absorb or desorb liquid by capillarity.
In fluid statics, capillary pressure is the pressure between two immiscible fluids in a thin tube, resulting from the interactions of forces between the fluids and solid walls of the tube. Capillary pressure can serve as both an opposing or driving force for fluid transport and is a significant property for research and industrial purposes. It is also observed in natural phenomena.
In fluid dynamics the Eötvös number (Eo), also called the Bond number (Bo), is a dimensionless number measuring the importance of gravitational forces compared to surface tension forces for the movement of liquid front. Alongside the Capillary number, commonly denoted , which represents the contribution of viscous drag, is useful for studying the movement of fluid in porous or granular media, such as soil. The Bond number is also used to characterize the shape of bubbles or drops moving in a surrounding fluid. The two names used for this dimensionless term commemorate the Hungarian physicist Loránd Eötvös (1848–1919) and the English physicist Wilfrid Noel Bond (1897–1937), respectively. The term Eötvös number is more frequently used in Europe, while Bond number is commonly used in other parts of the world.
A loop heat pipe (LHP) is a two-phase heat transfer device that uses capillary action to remove heat from a source and passively move it to a condenser or radiator. LHPs are similar to heat pipes but have the advantage of being able to provide reliable operation over long distance and the ability to operate against gravity. They can transport a large heat load over a long distance with a small temperature difference. Different designs of LHPs ranging from powerful, large size LHPs to miniature LHPs have been developed and successfully employed in a wide sphere of applications both ground and space-based applications.
Structural dampness is the presence of unwanted moisture in the structure of a building, either the result of intrusion from outside or condensation from within the structure. A high proportion of damp problems in buildings are caused by ambient climate dependent factors of condensation and rain penetration. Capillary penetration of fluid from the ground up through concrete or masonry is known as "rising damp" and is governed by the shape and porosity of the construction materials through which this evaporation-limited capillary penetration takes place. Structural damp, regardless of the mechanisms through which it takes place, is exacerbated by higher levels of humidity.
Stone sealing is the application of a surface treatment to products constructed of natural stone to retard staining and corrosion. All bulk natural stone is riddled with interconnected capillary channels that permit penetration by liquids and gases. This is true for igneous rock types such as granite and basalt, metamorphic rocks such as marble and slate, and sedimentary rocks such as limestone, travertine, and sandstone. These porous channels act like a sponge, and capillary action draws in liquids over time, along with any dissolved salts and other solutes. Very porous stone, such as sandstone absorb liquids relatively quickly, while denser igneous stones such as granite are significantly less porous; they absorb smaller volumes, and more slowly, especially when absorbing viscous liquids.
In physics, the Young–Laplace equation is an algebraic equation that describes the capillary pressure difference sustained across the interface between two static fluids, such as water and air, due to the phenomenon of surface tension or wall tension, although use of the latter is only applicable if assuming that the wall is very thin. The Young–Laplace equation relates the pressure difference to the shape of the surface or wall and it is fundamentally important in the study of static capillary surfaces. It is a statement of normal stress balance for static fluids meeting at an interface, where the interface is treated as a surface : where is the Laplace pressure, the pressure difference across the fluid interface, is the surface tension, is the unit normal pointing out of the surface, is the mean curvature, and and are the principal radii of curvature. Note that only normal stress is considered, because a static interface is possible only in the absence of tangential stress.
The capillary length or capillary constant is a length scaling factor that relates gravity and surface tension. It is a fundamental physical property that governs the behavior of menisci, and is found when body forces (gravity) and surface forces are in equilibrium.
Electrokinetic phenomena are a family of several different effects that occur in heterogeneous fluids, or in porous bodies filled with fluid, or in a fast flow over a flat surface. The term heterogeneous here means a fluid containing particles. Particles can be solid, liquid or gas bubbles with sizes on the scale of a micrometer or nanometer. There is a common source of all these effects—the so-called interfacial 'double layer' of charges. Influence of an external force on the diffuse layer generates tangential motion of a fluid with respect to an adjacent charged surface. This force might be electric, pressure gradient, concentration gradient, or gravity. In addition, the moving phase might be either continuous fluid or dispersed phase.
Capillary action through synthetic mesh is the result of the intermolecular attraction between moisture and semi-synthetic polymers, causing a current of thermionic energy through a specific pathway within a mesh material. The combination of the adhesive forces and the surface tension that arises from cohesion produces the characteristic upward curve in a fluid, such as water. Capillarity is the result of cohesion of water molecules and adhesion of those molecules to the solid material forming the void. As the edges of the material are brought closer together, such as in a very narrow path, the interaction causes the liquid to be drawn away from the original source. The more narrow the pathway, the greater the rise of the liquid. Greater surface tension and increased ratio of adhesion to cohesion also result in greater rise. Synthetic materials using conductive polymer as found in polypyrrole to reduce liquid density to a manageable state.
Jurin's law, or capillary rise, is the simplest analysis of capillary action—the induced motion of liquids in small channels—and states that the maximum height of a liquid in a capillary tube is inversely proportional to the tube's diameter. Capillary action is one of the most common fluid mechanical effects explored in the field of microfluidics. Jurin's law is named after James Jurin, who discovered it between 1718 and 1719. His quantitative law suggests that the maximum height of liquid in a capillary tube is inversely proportional to the tube's diameter. The difference in height between the surroundings of the tube and the inside, as well as the shape of the meniscus, are caused by capillary action. The mathematical expression of this law can be derived directly from hydrostatic principles and the Young–Laplace equation. Jurin's law allows the measurement of the surface tension of a liquid and can be used to derive the capillary length.
Elasto-capillarity is the ability of capillary force to deform an elastic material. From the viewpoint of mechanics, elastocapillarity phenomena essentially involve competition between the elastic strain energy in the bulk and the energy on the surfaces/interfaces. In the modeling of these phenomena, some challenging issues are, among others, the exact characterization of energies at the micro scale, the solution of strongly nonlinear problems of structures with large deformation and moving boundary conditions, and instability of either solid structures or droplets/films.The capillary forces are generally negligible in the analysis of macroscopic structures but often play a significant role in many phenomena at small scales.
The rise in core (RIC) method is an alternate reservoir wettability characterization method described by S. Ghedan and C. H. Canbaz in 2014. The method enables estimation of all wetting regions such as strongly water wet, intermediate water, oil wet and strongly oil wet regions in relatively quick and accurate measurements in terms of Contact angle rather than wettability index.
Moisture management or moisture-wicking is a functional property in textiles that enables them to transfer moisture from the skin, by capillary action through the fabric, spreading it over a large external surface area, which helps in drying quickly. The property is one of the most important for thermal comfort of textiles.