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Capillary-driven thinning of DNA solutions

Silvia Nardone, Simon J. Haward, Amy Q. Shen, Vincenzo Calabrese

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Capillary thinning of polymeric fluids is central to biological and industrial processes, yet the mechanisms governing thinning dynamics remain unresolved, especially for semi-flexible polymers. Using ideal solutions of semi-flexible DNA, we validate a phenomenological model for exponential capillary thinning that accounts for each polymer in the molecular weight distribution. For semi-flexible polymers, self-selection of the exponential time constant occurs by a fundamentally different mechanism than for highly flexible systems, and is not simply governed by the longest polymers in the molecular weight distribution.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)531-540
Number of pages10
JournalRheologica Acta
Volume64
Issue number9-10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2025

Keywords

  • Polymer solutions
  • elastocapillarity
  • extensional flows
  • fluid filaments
  • polydispersity
  • polymer dynamics
  • semi-flexible polymers

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Chemical Engineering (miscellaneous)
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials

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