Contact angle assessment of hydrophobic silica nanoparticles related to the mechanisms of dry water formation.

Dry water is a very convenient way of encapsulating a high amount of aqueous solutions in a powder form made of hydrophobic silica nanoparticles. It was demonstrated in previous studies that both solid and liquid interfacial properties influence the quality of the final product resulting occasionally in mousse formation. To explain this behavior, contact angles of silica nanoparticles have been measured for water and water/ethanol solution by means of liquid intrusion experiments. It was found that the quality of the final product correlates with the contact angle, i.e., contact angle close to 105 degrees leads to mousse formation whereas a slightly higher value of approximately 118 degrees allows dry water formation. The proposed explanation was based on the energy of immersion and adhesion defined as the energy needed for a spherical particle to respectively penetrate into the liquid or attach at the liquid/air interface. Significantly lower energy of immersion calculated for lower contact angle might account for particle penetration into the liquid phase during processing, leading to continuous network aggregation, air entrapment, and finally mousse formation.