ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief review on the different kinds of lateral capillary forces and presents a general theoretical approach, which can be applied for theoretical description of all kinds of lateral capillary forces. It addresses the issue about the electric field-induced capillary force and considers the case of charges, which are located on the particle/nonpolar–fluid interface and uniformly distributed over it. Asymptotic expression for the interaction force is derived in the form of power expansion, which predicts that in the considered case the total force is repulsive, that is, the electric repulsion between like-charged particles is stronger than the electric field-induced capillary attraction. Capillary interaction appears also when the particles are partially immersed in a liquid film; this is the immersion capillary force. The capillary forces between particles at a liquid interface, that is, the long-range interparticle interactions mediated by the interface, are universal in three aspects: particle nature, particle size, and particle shape.
