A meniscus is a curved surface that forms when a liquid is in contact with another surface. The meniscus can be convex or concave depending on the nature of the liquid and its surface tension.
The meniscus height varies for different types of water. In distilled water, for example, the meniscus is small; in tap water, it is slightly taller; and in seawater, it is very tall.
It’s a curve
A meniscus water is a curve that appears on the upper surface of liquids in response to their containers. This can be convex or concave, depending on the amount of cohesion and adhesion between the liquid and the container.
Water molecules are polar (they have positively and negatively charged ends). Because opposites attract, they tend to stick together. This is why we see water forming a downward curve when it’s in a glass beaker.
It also makes sense for this to happen when the glass is narrow in diameter, as it allows for water to cling to the inside of the tube. That’s what creates the capillary action – water molecules “climb” on top of the glass.
In the case of a graduated cylinder or volumetric flask, it’s important to line up the graduation with the lowest point on the meniscus so that you’re reading from the correct side. This will make it easier to take accurate measurements.
It’s concave
A meniscus is a curve that forms at the top of a liquid, close to the surface of a container or other object. It’s produced by surface tension, which causes the attraction between the liquid molecules and the container to be stronger than the attraction between the liquid molecules and the surrounding material.
Water and glass present a concave meniscus, which means the molecules of the liquid are more attracted to the sides of the container than to each other. This is a common condition for polar molecules, like those in water and glass.
In some cases, the meniscus can also be convex. For example, when mercury is placed in a glass tube, its atoms form a convex meniscus because the attraction between the atoms is stronger than the attraction between them and the glass.
It’s soft
When you’re measuring a liquid in a graduated cylinder, the water will slightly creep up the sides of the cylinder, and it forms a meniscus. The reason that this happens is that water is made up of polar molecules.
Those molecules have positively and negatively charged ends, and they tend to stick together because they attract each other. Because they stick together, they also cling to the walls of the glass.
So, the water will get stuck to the bottom of the cylinder, and when you’re measuring that liquid, you should do it at the lowest point. This is called the lower meniscus.
We used a combination of static and dynamic force spectroscopy to measure the capillary force of a nanoscale water meniscus at constant curvature (Figure 4a). It decreased below 25 nm while indicating its bulk value above 130 nm radius-of-curvature (ROC). These results are consistent with the Young-Laplace equation for effective surface tension at planar interfaces.
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It’s not blood
When you put a liquid into a test tube or beaker, you see a curved surface called a meniscus. This happens because of adhesion, which is a force between molecules that are attracted to each other.
Water is a great example of a liquid that has strong adhesive forces. This is because water is very polar and clings to the walls of the glass tube, like glue.
The amount of adhesive forces that a liquid has is important to determine how much the meniscus will be concave or convex, and it depends on the strength of those forces. In the case of water, adhesive forces are greater than cohesive forces, so the meniscus will be concave. It also depends on the liquid itself and chemical bonding.
