Breaking the symmetry: Suppressing Plateau-Rayleigh instability and optimizing hydropower utilization

Abstract Droplet impact on solid surfaces is essential for natural and industrial processes. Particularly, controlling the instability after droplet impact, and avoiding the satellite drops generation, have aroused great interest for its significance in inkjet printing, pesticide spraying, and hydroelectric power collection. Herein, we found that breaking the symmetry of the droplet impact dynamics using patterned-wettability surfaces can suppress the Plateau-Rayleigh instability during the droplet rebounding and improve the energy collection efficiency. Systematic experimental investigation, together with mechanical modeling and numerical simulation, revealed that the asymmetric wettability patterns can regulate the internal liquid flow and reduce the vertical velocity gradient inside the droplet, thus suppressing the instability during droplet rebounding and eliminating the satellite drops. Accordingly, the droplet energy utilization was promoted, as demonstrated by the improved hydroelectric power generation efficiency by 36.5%. These findings deepen the understanding of the wettability-induced asymmetrical droplet dynamics during the liquid-solid interactions, and facilitate related applications such as hydroelectric power generation and materials transportation.