Control over Coffee-Ring Formation in Evaporating Liquid Drops Containing Ellipsoids

A control over the nature of deposit pattern obtained after the evaporation of solvent from a sessile drop containing dispersed materials has been demonstrated to have applications in materials engineering, separation technology, printing technology, manufacture of printed circuit boards, biology, and agriculture. In this article, we report an experimental investigation of the effect of particle shape and DLVO (Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek) interactions on evaporation-driven pattern formation in sessile drops. The use of a model system containing monodisperse particles where particle aspect ratio and surface charge can be adjusted reveals that a control over the nature of deposit pattern can be achieved by tuning the particle-particle and particle-substrate interactions. A clear coffee-ring formation is observed when the strength of particle-particle repulsion is higher than the particle-substrate attraction. However, complete suppression of ringlike deposits leading to a uniform film is achieved when particle-substrate and particle-particle interactions are attractive. Results illustrate that for the system of submicron ellipsoids that are hydrophilic, the nature of deposit patterns obtained after evaporation depends on the nature of interactions and not on particle shape.