While the pervaporation process leading to dense materials is well understood [4, 5], several issues remain unsolved: they concern the mechanical instabilities that often occur during the solidification. In most of the investigated cases (dispersions, polymers, inks, …), the evaporation of the solvent indeed significantly deforms the pervaporation matrix, leading to the delamination of the material from the substrate and very often, fracture and crack eventually form. Such an outcome is quite deleterious to the good quality of the final material, both for its characterization and its application.
We wish to understand (and to master) the combined roles of i) the microfluidic matrix and ii) the dispersed fluid undergoing evaporation on the properties of the final printed micro-structures.
Importantly, the high confinement of the pervaporation technique is likely to play a crucial role as compared to the traditional case of the drying of thin films, but the two techniques share important similarities which we will exploit next in the film-making processes in order to produce large-scale materials.

More informations : 2015_AMADEus_047