Simulation of vegetable lubricant electrowetting

Vegetable oil have the advantages of environmental protection and stable physical and chemical properties. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that the lubricating performance of charged vegetable oils is significantly improved. Therefore, in this research, the COMSOL 5.6 software was used to simulate the electrowetting behavior of vegetable oil droplets across a range of voltages, exploring the effects of body charge and electric field force on the wettability of the droplets. The simulation results reveal that the charge density within the droplet is most concentrated in the top area near the electrode needle. Notably, the maximum charge density escalates with an increase in voltage, but the growth efficiency diminishes over time and with higher voltages. In addition, the distribution of the electric field force exerted on the droplet exhibits a gradient, and the electric field force increases as the voltage rises. The findings of this study lead to the conclusion that the wetting performance of vegetable oil droplets can be effectively optimized by controlling the voltage, that is, the electrowetting technique is an effective method for enhancing the wetting performance of vegetable oil lubricants.