In wetting, the usual implicit assumption is that a solid substrate is sufficiently thick or rigid, that it does not deform or change shape due to the interfacial forces that arise when it contacts a droplet of a liquid, however, in many natural systems this is not the case. Depositing a small droplet onto a smooth substrate and measuring the contact angle in side-profile view gives the contact angle, θ, which is assumed (to within contact angle hysteresis) to approximate to the Young’s law value, θ
e, given by the interfacial tensions, i.e., cosθ
e = (γ
SV − γ
SL)/γ
LV where the γ
ij are the interfacial tensions between the solid, liquid and vapor phases. However, the bending rigidity of a solid elastic plate scales with the cube of its thickness and this assumption can become erroneous [
1]. When a droplet has a radius,
R, larger than the elastocapillary bending length [
2],
L
EC = (κ
b/γ
LV)
1/2 the solid can become deformed and shaped by the liquid. In practice, this effect has been given the name “
capillary origami” based on experiments showing how films of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) shaped in two-dimensions can be folded by evaporating droplets of water to produce a designed three-dimensional shape [
3–
4]; an effect stronger than the dimpling of an elastomer surface by a deposited droplet [
5].
Capillary origami is more than a curiosity and has implications for technological applications in creating three-dimensional structures from initially flat films through the capillary forces during liquid evaporation and drying [
6–
8]. The effect of capillary forces due to nanodroplets in activating and guiding the folding of planar graphene ribbons has recently been simulated [
9].
illustrates
capillary origami concepts and effects based on original ideas by Py et al [
3–
4]. When a PDMS (Sylgard 184) substrate of reduced thickness is contacted by a droplet of water (containing blue food dye) capillary forces bend it out of its initial planar shape (). When the substrate thickness is reduced to 45 μm and cut into a triangular shape (10 mm side lengths) and scored with a laser (Universal Laser Systems 30W CO
2 laser cutter) to create fold-lines (), contact with a large droplet of water can create a three-dimensional shape (). On contact by the droplet the sheet is bent () and after droplet evaporation a tetrahedron is formed (). Whilst this is an example of the shaping of a solid substrate by capillary forces, the final shape relies on evaporation to complete the process.
illustrates a number of effects as a droplet contacts a thin PDMS strip substrate (“ribbon”) hanging vertically. If a droplet is deposited on a long ribbon it causes substrate deformation, but is unable to wrap or fold the substrate around itself and, as evaporation proceeds, the deformation decreases (). However, when the length of ribbon below the droplet contact point is sufficiently short, the contacting droplet can quickly fold the ribbon up against gravity and wrap itself. and are illustrative of the ability of capillary forces to deform, fold and bend substrates. The concepts of
capillary origami and
droplet wrapping also have implications for our understanding of the definition of hydrophobicity and its relationship to adhesion. Gao and McCarthy demonstrated that spontaneous and complete droplet wrapping occurs, without the need for evaporation, with a thin film of Teflon® even though this material would normally have a contact angle to water greater than 90° and so be regarded as hydrophobic [
10]; an effect one of the current authors explained on the basis of the changes in the balance between interfacial and bending energies [
11].
In a previous report, McHale argued from surface free energy considerations that, when the bending energy is small, all solids should demonstrate droplet wrapping and so can, in an absolute sense, be considered hydrophilic [
11]. That work also discussed why for a partially wetting droplet to be observed there is necessarily an assumption of some rigidity of the substrate, so that the usual definition of relative hydrophobicity (and relative hydrophilicity) through contact angle measurement includes a structural non-surface chemistry based assumption about the solid. It was also suggested that a set of loose spherical grains could be considered to be the extreme case of a solid with no bending energy, thus relating the concept of droplet wrapping to that of the formation of liquid marbles [
12–
13]. It was further argued that when the flexible solid surface possessed rigid surface roughness or the solid grains had a rigid surface roughness, droplet wrapping might, under defined conditions for the surface chemistry defined contact angle, be suppressed. Since wrapping a spherical droplet requires both bending and stretching of the solid, in this report, we consider the simpler, but experimentally realizable, cases of wrapping of a droplet of water by a thin ribbon and the assembly of solid grains to form a liquid marble. For both cases, we extend the previous theoretical consideration to ribbon-type substrates and disconnected solid grains with a rigid surface structure. We review the case for surface roughness that has low aspect ratio so that the liquid can penetrate into the structure – the Wenzel case [
14–
15]. We then consider whether droplet wrapping can occur without penetration into the surface structure – the Cassie–Baxter case [
16–
17]. We show that droplet wrapping should occur with both types of configuration and we derive a condition for the transition between these two cases; this condition is the same as for the Wenzel to Cassie–Baxter transition on a superhydrophobic surface [
18–
19].