Liquid marbles stabilized by graphite particles from aqueous surfactant solutions

When a hydrophobic powder encapsulates a liquid drop, it forms a liquid marble which is non-wetting and behaves as a micro-reservoir of the liquid able to move without any leakage. In this work, we successfully prepared liquid marbles by encapsulating graphite micropowder on aqueous sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) droplets and determined their total evaporation and buckling periods in a closed chamber having constant relative humidity and temperature. The evaporation rates of graphite liquid marbles obtained from SDS solutions were compared with the rates of graphite liquid marbles from pure water and also with aqueous SDS droplets in the same conditions. The effects of SDS adsorption at the graphite-water and air-water interfaces on the formation and evaporation behavior of graphite liquid marbles are discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved