On the Slip Mechanism of Microfluidics by Means of a Mean-Field Free-Energy Lattice Boltzmann Method

In this paper, we studied liquid-solid slip by employing a mean-field free-energy lattice Boltzmann approach recently proposed [Zhang et al., Phy. Rev. E. 69, 032602, 2004]. With a general bounce-back no-slip boundary condition applied to the interface, liquid slip was observed because of the specific fluid-solid interaction. The slip length is clearly related to the interaction strength: the stronger the interaction, the less hydrophobic the surface and hence results in less slipping. Unlike other lattice Boltzmann models, a contact angle value between 0–180° can be generated here without using a less realistic repulsive fluid-solid interaction. We found that system size does not affect the absolute slip magnitude; however, the ratio of the slip length to system size increases quickly as the system becomes smaller, illustrating that slip becomes important in smaller-scale systems. A small negative slip length can also be produced with a strong fluid-solid attraction. These results are in qualitative agreement with those from experimental and molecular dynamics studies.