Effect of contact electrification on the adhesion behavior of copper/ polydimethylsiloxane interface: An atomic-scale investigation

J Wu and WM Zhu and Q Wen and JP Cao and Q Cao, APPLIED SURFACE SCIENCE, 704, 163397 (2025).

DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2025.163397

It is reported that the triboelectric materials can induce significant surface charge due to contact electrification, leading to a high proportion of the electrostatic force in the adhesion force. Previous work has investigated the effect by establishing adhesive contact mechanics models. However, the calculation of electrostatic force is based on the parallel plate capacitance model, which can be not very accurate. In this work, the first-principles and molecular dynamics methods, which derive the electrostatic force by integrating the Coulombic force between atomic charges without relying on any prerequisite assumptions, are applied to study the effect of contact electrification on the copper-polydimethylsiloxane adhesion behavior quantitively. The results reveal that the proportions of electrostatic force caused by contact electrification in adhesion force during the pulling-off and peeling-off processes are 11.83 % and 15.42 %, respectively. In addition, the contribution of electrostatic force strongly depends on the amount of surface charge. When the amount of transferred charges increases to 5 times, the proportion of electrostatic force in adhesion force increases to 27.69 % during the pulling-off process, and increases to 34.31 % during the peeling-off process, respectively. This work can provide a quantitative understanding of the contribution of electrostatic forces of triboelectric materials in adhesion.

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