In this theoretical study, the forces, pressures, energies and kinetics for liquid rising in three types of capillary tubes were analyzed: one type was chemically homogeneous and the other two were nonuniform with chemical gradients. The tubes with chemical gradients were "designed" such that the liquid would still rise and attain the same ultimate height as an equivalent homogenous tube, but as shown here, the energies and kinetics of these inhomogeneous tubes are anticipated to be quite different from their homogeneous counterpart. (C) 2015 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommans.org/licenses/by/4.0/).