• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

UH engineers discover method to create upward water fountain in deep water

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
January 18, 2022
in Science News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

A pair of University of Houston engineers has discovered that they can create upward fountains in water by shining laser beams on the water’s surface. Jiming Bao, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, and his postdoctoral student Feng Lin, attribute the finding to a phenomenon known as the Marangoni effect, which causes convection and explains the behavior of water when differences in surface tension exist.  

Jiming Bao, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston

Credit: University of Houston

A pair of University of Houston engineers has discovered that they can create upward fountains in water by shining laser beams on the water’s surface. Jiming Bao, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, and his postdoctoral student Feng Lin, attribute the finding to a phenomenon known as the Marangoni effect, which causes convection and explains the behavior of water when differences in surface tension exist.  

Though first described in the 1860’s, the Marangoni effect is still having its way with science. 

“Scientifically no one has predicted or imagined this kind of upward deformation before,” reports Bao in Materials Today Physics. “It is well known that an outward Marangoni convection from a low surface tension region will make the free surface of a liquid depressed. Here, we report that this established perception is only valid for thin liquid films. Using surface laser heating, we show that in deep liquids a laser beam pulls up the fluid above the free surface generating fountains with different shapes.” 

Here’s a Marangoni visual: Sprinkle a bunch of pepper into a bowl of water. Then squeeze one drop of liquid detergent (dishwashing, laundry, even a chip of soap or toothpaste) into the middle of the same bowl and watch as the pepper disburses, scattering quickly to the sides of the bowl. That simple experiment illustrates the Marangoni effect, which appears in many applications of fluid dynamics.  

In the most recent incarnation, the Marangoni effect’s laser-induced liquid fountains have potential to impact applications involving liquids or soft matters such as lithography and 3D printing, heat transfer and mass transport, crystal growth and alloy welding, dynamic grating and spatial light modulation and microfluidics and adaptive optics. 

Inspired by his previous work, the successful simulation of inward surface depression in a shallow liquid, Bao increased the depth of ferrofluid in the current simulation. Ferrofluid is a so-called “magic” liquid and is best known for its astonishing surface spikes generated by a magnet.  

“Understanding the distinct surface deformation in liquids with different depths helps unravel the dynamics of the surface deformation process,” said Bao.  

Bao used a low-power (<1 W) continuous-wave laser beam to create a non-uniform surface temperature field to induce the Marangoni effect. To understand the distinct deformations between deep and shallow liquids, he varied the liquid layer thickness while keeping the laser beam the same. 
 
The laser fountains and the depth-dependent transition from surface indentation to laser fountain have never been reported in literature, probably because they are not anticipated by any existing theory. 

“We emphasize that there have been numerous attempts to understand the Marangoni flow-driven surface deformation, but no existing theory can predict the deformation patterns of a liquid with an arbitrary depth in a straightforward manner,” said Bao. 



Journal

Materials Today Physics

Article Title

Marangoni convection-driven laser fountains on free surfaces of liquids

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Scientist in laboratory

Biological cleanup discovered for certain “forever chemicals”

May 31, 2023
Anomalodonta and vanuxemia

The clams that fell behind, and what they can tell us about evolution and extinction

May 31, 2023

Shedding light on the complex flow dynamics within the small intestine

May 31, 2023

Genetic change increased bird flu severity during U.S. spread

May 30, 2023

POPULAR NEWS

  • plants

    Plants remove cancer causing toxins from air

    39 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Element creation in the lab deepens understanding of surface explosions on neutron stars

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Groundbreaking study uncovers first evidence of long-term directionality in the origination of human mutation, fundamentally challenging Neo-Darwinism

    115 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • How life and geology worked together to forge Earth’s nutrient rich crust

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Biological cleanup discovered for certain “forever chemicals”

The clams that fell behind, and what they can tell us about evolution and extinction

Shedding light on the complex flow dynamics within the small intestine

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 50 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In