{"id":96953,"date":"2019-10-02T17:43:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T00:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/quantum-destabilization-of-a-water-sandwich"},"modified":"2019-10-02T17:43:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T00:43:58","slug":"quantum-destabilization-of-a-water-sandwich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/quantum-destabilization-of-a-water-sandwich","title":{"rendered":"Quantum destabilization of a water sandwich"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/quantum-destabilization-of-a-water-sandwich2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>From raindrops rolling off the waxy surface of a waterlily leaf to the efficiency of desalination membranes, interactions between water molecules and water-repellent \u201chydrophobic\u201d surfaces are all around us. The interplay becomes even more intriguing when a thin water layer becomes sandwiched between two hydrophobic surfaces, KAUST researchers have shown.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1980s, researchers first noted an unexpected effect when two hydrophobic surfaces were slowly brought together in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/water\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water<\/a>. \u201cAt some point, the two surfaces would suddenly jump into contact\u2014like two magnets being brought together,\u201d says Himanshu Mishra from KAUST\u2019s Water Desalination and Reuse Center. Mishra\u2019s lab investigates water at all length scales, from reducing <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/water+consumption\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water consumption<\/a> in agriculture, to the properties of individual water molecules.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers were unable to explain the phenomenon at the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/molecular+level\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">molecular level<\/a>, so in 2016, Mishra organized a KAUST conference on the subject. \u201cWe brought together leaders in the field\u2014experimentalists and theorists\u2014leading to intense debates on the understanding of hydrophobic surface forces,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From raindrops rolling off the waxy surface of a waterlily leaf to the efficiency of desalination membranes, interactions between water molecules and water-repellent \u201chydrophobic\u201d surfaces are all around us. The interplay becomes even more intriguing when a thin water layer becomes sandwiched between two hydrophobic surfaces, KAUST researchers have shown. In the early 1980s, researchers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1506,1617,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-quantum-physics","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}