Capillary action (sometimes capillarity, capillary motion, capillary effect, or wicking) is the

ability of a liquid to flow in narrow spaces without the assistance of, or even in opposition to,
external forces like gravity. The effect can be seen in the drawing up of liquids between the hairs
of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, in porous materials such as paper and plaster, in some non-porous
materials such as sand and liquefied carbon fibre, or in a cell. It occurs because of intermolecular
forces between the liquid and surrounding solid surfaces. If the diameter of the tube is sufficiently
small, then the combination of surface tension (which is caused by cohesion within the liquid)
and adhesive forces between the liquid and container wall act to propel the liquid.
Contents:
 1History
 2Phenomena and physics of capillary action
 3In plants and animals
 4Examples
 5Height of a meniscus
 6Liquid transport in porous media
 7See also
 8References
 9Further reading
Phenomena and physics of capillary action:

Capillary flow experiment to investigate capillary flows and phenomena aboard the International
Space Station
A common apparatus used to demonstrate the phenomenon is the capillary tube. When the lower
end of a vertical glass tube is placed in a liquid, such as water, a
concave meniscus forms. Adhesion occurs between the fluid and the solid inner wall pulling the
liquid column up until there is a sufficient mass of liquid for gravitational forces to overcome these
intermolecular forces. The contact length (around the edge) between the top of the liquid column
and the tube is proportional to the radius of the tube, while the weight of the liquid column is
proportional to the square of the tube’s radius. So, a narrow tube will draw a liquid column higher
than a wider tube will, given that the inner water molecules cohere sufficiently to the outer ones.
In plants and animals:
Capillary action is seen in many plants. Water is brought high up in trees by branching; evaporation
at the leaves creating depressurization; probably by osmotic pressure added at the roots; and
possibly at other locations inside the plant, especially when gathering humidity with air roots.
Capillary action for uptake of water has been described in some small animals, such as Ligia
exoticaand Moloch horridu

Examples:
Capillary action is essential for the drainage of constantly produced tear fluid from the eye. Two
canaliculi of tiny diameter are present in the inner corner of the eyelid, also called the lacrimal
ducts; their openings can be seen with the naked eye within the lacrymal sacs when the eyelids are
everted.
Wicking is the absorption of a liquid by a material in the manner of a candle wick. Paper
towels absorb liquid through capillary action, allowing a fluid to be transferred from a surface to
the towel. The small pores of a sponge act as small capillaries, causing it to absorb a large amount
of fluid. Some textile fabrics are said to use capillary action to “wick” sweat away from the skin.
These are often referred to as wicking fabrics, after the capillary properties of candle and
lamp wicks.
Capillary action is observed in thin layer chromatography, in which a solvent moves vertically up
a plate via capillary action. In this case the pores are gaps between very small particles.
Capillary action draws ink to the tips of fountain pen nibs from a reservoir or cartridge inside the
pen.
With some pairs of materials, such as mercury and glass, the intermolecular forces within the
liquid exceed those between the solid and the liquid, so a convex meniscus forms and capillary
action works in reverse.
In hydrology, capillary action describes the attraction of water molecules to soil particles.
Capillary action is responsible for moving groundwater from wet areas of the soil to dry areas.

Differences in soil potential ({\displaystyle \Psi _{m}} ) drive capillary action in soil.
Height of a meniscus:

Water height in a capillary plotted against capillary diameter

Liquid transport in porous media:

Capillary flow in a brick, with a sorptivity of 5.0 mm·min−1/2 and a porosity of 0.25.
When a dry porous medium, such as a brick or a wick, is brought into contact with a liquid, it will start absorbing

at a rate which decreases over time. When considering evaporation, liquid penetration will reach a limit dependen

parameters of temperature, humidity and permeability.

Capillary action is all around us:

When you spill your glass of BubblyBerryPowerGo (which is, of course, mostly
water) on the kitchen table you rush to get a paper towel to wipe it up. First, you
can thank surface tension, which keeps the liquid in a nice puddle on the table,
instead of a thin film of sugary goo that spreads out onto the floor. When you put
the paper towel onto your mess the liquid adheres itself to the paper fibers and the
liquid moves to the spaces between and inside of the fibers.
Obviously, Mona Lisa is a fan of capillary action.

 Plants and trees couldn't thrive without capillary action. Plants put down
roots into the soil which are capable of carrying water from the soil up into
the plant. Water, which contains dissolved nutrients, gets inside the roots
and starts climbing up the plant tissue. Capillary action helps bring water up
into the roots. But capillary action can only "pull" water up a small distance,
after which it cannot overcome gravity. To get water up to all the branches
and leaves, the forces of adhesion and cohesion go to work in the plant's
xylem to move water to the furthest leaf.
 Capillary action is also essential for the drainage of constantly produced tear
fluid from the eye. Two tiny-diameter tubes, the lacrimal ducts, are present
in the inner corner of the eyelid; these ducts secrete tears into the eye.
 Maybe you've used a fountain pen or maybe your parents or grandparents
did. The ink moves from a reservoir in the body of the pen down to the tip
and into the paper (which is composed of tiny paper fibers and air spaces
between them), and not just turning into a blob. Of course gravity is
responsible for the ink moving "downhill" to the pen tip, but capillary action
is needed to keep the ink flowing onto the paper
Proof for capillary action:
 You can see capillary action in action (although slowly) by doing an
experiment where you place the bottom of a celery stalk in a glass of water
with food coloring and watch for the movement of the color to the top leaves
of the celery. You might want to use a piece of celery that has begun to
whither, as it is in need of a quick drink. It can take a few days, but, as these
pictures show, the colored water is "drawn" upward, against the pull of
gravity. This effect happens because, in plants, water molecules move
through narrow tubes that are called capillaries (or xylem).
 Conclusion:
The experimental results presented here are to be considered just preliminary, since one single
solid-liquid coupling was considered. However, they allow for the introduction of new
hypotheses on the capillary rise effect, not yet considered in the literature. In fact, the capillary
rise is shown to decrease progressively for increasing the declination angle from the vertical.
This trend is followed with regularity for all the six capillaries in the series we tested, and
cannot thus to be considered as the fruit of some experimental artifact. The capillary extension,
i.e. the tube length occupied by the liquid and comprised between the meniscus and the free
surface level, increases for increasing the capillary inclination, as expected. However, the
predictions based on Jurin’s law do not match the experimental data, since the measured
capillary extension always remains below the theoretical value, and tends to a finite value for
the limiting case of the horizontal orientation. We observe further that the meniscus seems not
to lose its axial symmetry while varying the duct inclination, and that, in addition, there is no
reason why the equilibrium contact angle should reduce for increasing α. All of this is consistent
with the idea that within a distance of the order of the capillary length, the meniscus shape is
only determined by the interaction between the solid wall and the liquid, and is insensitive to
the gravitational action. The conclusion can thus be thrown that experiments performed with
inclined capillaries at the ground g-value are equivalent, and therefore meaningful to
investigate the capillary rise under reduced gravity conditions. The observed reduction of the
capillary rise and extension towards Jurin’s law predictions, however, opens very intriguing
questions on the statics of capillary tubes, and calls for additional data and observations.