1. Biomimetic Plastronic Surfaces for Handling of Viscous Oil
- Author
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Sarbajit Banerjee, Jennifer D. Wood, Nathan A. Fleer, Stephanie Ruus, Theodore E. G. Alivio, Thomas E. O'Loughlin, Robert V. Dennis, and Subodh Gupta
- Subjects
Work (thermodynamics) ,Materials science ,General Chemical Engineering ,Extraction (chemistry) ,Energy Engineering and Power Technology ,Nanotechnology ,02 engineering and technology ,010402 general chemistry ,021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology ,01 natural sciences ,Surface energy ,0104 chemical sciences ,Contact angle ,Fuel Technology ,Rheology ,Chemical engineering ,Asphalt ,Monolayer ,0210 nano-technology ,Porosity - Abstract
Unconventional deposits such as extra heavy oil and bitumen represent a steadily increasing proportion of extracted fuels. The rheological properties of viscous crude oil represents a formidable impediment to their extraction, transportation, and processing and have necessitated considerable retooling and changes to process design. In this work, we demonstrate that highly textured inorganic substrates generated by depositing ZnO nanotetrapods onto periodically ordered stainless steel mesh substrates exhibit viscous oil contact angles exceeding 150° as well as enable the facile gliding of viscous oil. Such functionality is derived as a result of multiscale texturation and porosity achieved within these substrates, which are characterized by trapping of plastronic air pockets at the solid/liquid interface. Further reduction of the surface energy has been achieved by constituting a helical highly ordered self-assembled monolayer of a perfluorinated phosphonic acid on the ZnO surfaces. Such structures are str...
- Published
- 2017
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