Bubble-burst-induced Puddle Jumping and Jet Printing

Abstract

Self-propelled droplet jumping has widespread applications in surface cleaning, condensation heat transfer, hydrogen production, and triboelectric nanogenerator due to the passive yet effective cross-interface transfer of mass, momentum, energy and charge, whose rates generally increase with droplet size. However, as droplet size increases, gravity inevitably impedes droplet’s mobility, imposing a capillary length constraint of 2.7mm for water droplet, beyond which self-propelled jumping remains a persistent challenge. Here, we report passive jumping of water puddle in the unprecedented centimeter scale from a superhydrophobic surface through the burst of an entrained bubble, breaking the capillary length limitation for droplet jumping. By virtue of direct and localized impact at droplet base, the bubble-burst-induced capillary waves play a paradigm-shifting role in shortening the impact duration, depressing droplet spreading, and facilitating momentum transfer. With >90% conversion to droplet jumping momentum, the impacting momentum of capillary waves scales linearly while droplet jumping height scales quadratically with bubble radius. Through studying the synergistic interplay between bubble bursting, fluidic jetting and droplet jumping, this work reveals a previously unexplored mechanism of capillary wave impact in fluid-structure interactions and offers a promising strategy for droplet actuations and the directional printing of particles in additive manufacturing.