Water capillary action

A drop of an aqueous solution of the mixture to be separated is now placed near the bottom of the paper strip and allowed to evaporate in the air. The strip is now again suspended in the closed cylinder, but with the bottom of the strip just immersed in the solvent. The capillary action of the paper will cause the solvent to rise steadily up the strip, and during this process the solvent, which now contains the mixture in solution, is continuously extracted by the retained water molecules in the paper. A highly hydrophobic (water-repellent) solute will move up closely behind the solvent-front, whereas a highly hydrophilic solute will barely leave the original point where the drop of the mixed solutes in solution has been dried. In an intermediate case,... 

Absorption - Processes water can be removed from a material by the capillary action of porous bodies. An example is the cream of clay and water used for casting pottery, which is deprived of the greater part of its water by placing it in molds of plaster of Paris. The capillary character of this mold withdraws the water from the liquid clay mixture and deposits upon itself a layer of solid clay, the thickness of which is controlled by the time of standing. Certain types of candies, such as gumdrops, are dried mainly by contact with the starch molds in which they are cast. The drying effect of sponges, towels and materials of this kind is due to this same action. 

Surface evaporation can be a limiting factor in the manufacture of many types of products. In the drying of paper, chrome leather, certain types of synthetic rubbers and similar materials, the sheets possess a finely fibrous structure which distributes the moisture through them by capillary action, thus securing very rapid diffusion of moisture from one point of the sheet to another. This means that it is almost impossible to remove moisture from the surface of the sheet without having it immediately replaced by capillary diffusion from the interior. The drying of sheetlike materials is essentially a process of surface evaporation. Note that with porous materials, evaporation may occur within the solid. In a porous material that is characterized by pores of diverse sizes, the movement of water may be controlled by capillarity, and not by concentration gradients. 

We will cover a simple drying model to examine the radiation drier of coated paper. We assume there are no major temperature or humidity variations in the direction of the paper web thickness, and that temperature T and humidity u are constant in the direction of thickness. This assumption requires that the capillary action be ignored, and the pressure gradient of water is zero on the assumption hu/dx = dT/dx = 0. How is it possible that the humidity distribution remains uniform ... 

Water in contact with glass takes on a concave meniscus, and water rises inside a small-diameter tube because of capillary action. 

Surface area and moisture uptake have been related to the disintegration properties of excipients such as crosspovidone, starch, and alginic acid [17]. The surface areas of the three materials were measured, and a linear correlation was found between the maximum moisture sorption and specific surface area for the three disintegrants. The greater the surface area of the material, the more numerous were the sites for capillary attraction of water to its surface. It was postulated that the capillary action appears to be responsible for the disintegration properties of the materials. 

A combination of adhesion and surface tension gives rise (pardon the pun) to capillary action. By its adhesion to the solid surface of the soil particles, the water wants to cover as much solid surface as possible. However, by the effect of surface tension, the water molecules adhering to the solid surface are connected with a surface him in which the stresses cannot exceed the surface tension. As water is attracted to the soil particles by adhesion, it will rise upward until attractive forces balance the pull of gravity (Figure 3.28). Smaller-diameter tubes force the air-water surface into a smaller radius, with a lower solid-surface-to-volume ratio, which results in a greater capillary force. Typical heights of capillary rise for several soil types are presented in Table 3.9. The practical relationship between normal subsurface water and capillary rise is presented in the following equation. 

Water flow through unsaturated soil is controlled by the same forces as capillary action and water retention (i.e., adhesion, gravity, and surface tension). Flow can occur only when the water phase is continuous from pore to pore. If gravity is the controlling force, downward flow will occur according to Darcy s law in direct proportion to the percentage of water-filled, connected pores. For example, if only half the pores in a cross section are water filled, the flow through that section will be half of that predicted by Q- K1A. 

The term capillary action describes the upward movement of a fluid as a result of surface tension through pore spaces. The fluid can rise until the lifting forces are balanced by gravitational pull (see Figure 3.28). The rise of fluid in a small tube above the water table surface, as previously discussed in Chapter 3, can be described using Equation 3.13. Lifting of fluids above the water table is a true negative pressure compared with atmospheric pressure (also described as soil suction). In soil situa-... 

Under most circumstances microorganisms are attached to solid soil particles and await the arrival of water, nutrients, and electron acceptors. When the biomass is above the water table, the dependence is upon migration of nutrients and diffusion of oxygen downward (or upward via capillary action). Bacterial colonies that develop below the saturated zone are dependent upon liquid phases for the delivery of necessary growth media. 

Special considerations apply to the movement of moisture in freeze drying. Since the water is frozen, liquid flow under capillary action is impossible, and movement must be... 

A common method to slip-cast ceramic membranes is to start with a colloidal suspension or polymeric solution as described in the previous section. This is called a slip . The porous support system is dipped in the slip and the dispersion medium (in most cases water or alcohol-water mixtures) is forced into the pores of the support by a pressure drop (APJ created by capillary action of the microporous support. At the interface the solid particles are retained and concentrated at the entrance of pores to form a gel layer as in the case of sol-gel processes. It is important that formation of the gel layer starts... 

The total swelling time for a dried SPH in aqueous solution is determined by two factors q and t2- h is the time for water to reach all the surface of the pores in the SPHs. It is determined by the effectiveness of the capillary action in a SPH. 2 is the actual swelling time of the polymer matrix, which is determined by the thickness of the cell walls and struts. Because the cell walls and stints of SPHs are very thin, they have very short characteristic swelling times. For SPHs, t2 is comparable to that of a ultrathin hydrogel film. The capillary action is mainly determined by the availability of capillary channels and the wettability of the channels. Various approaches have been attempted to maintain good capillary action (i.e., to decrease q) by maintaining open intercellular channels and good surface wettability. 

A basic system that can be used in a greenhouse—or for houseplants, when you go on vacation—is to sit the pots on capillary matting, which is then draped into a reservoir of water at one end. Water is drawn along the mat by capillary action to the soil in the pots in effect, the plants take what they need. 

The University of California field stations have dealt with dilute pesticide waste disposal on an experimental basis by using lined soil evaporation beds. The beds typically are 20 x 40 x 3 ft pits lined with a butyl rubber membrane and back filled with 12 to 18 Inches of sandy loam soli. Figure 1 Is a cross secton of such a bed. Used containers and spray equipment are washed on an adjacent concrete slab the wastewater drains Into a sedimentation box for trapping particulates, followed by a distribution box In the bed. From the distribution box, the dilute pesticide solutions run underneath the soli surface through leach lines made of 4 Inch perforated PVC pipe. The system Is designed so that water moves up through the soli by capillary action and evaporates off the surface. 

Figure 7.29 Schematic illustration of the formation of a slip-cast layer formed in the extraction of water by capillary action from a mold. From Introduction to Ceramics, by W. D. Kingery, H. K. Bowen and D. R. Uhlmann, Copyright 1976 by John Wiley Sons, Inc. This material is used by permission of John Wiley Sons, Inc.

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