Редколлегия Физикохимия Поверхности и Защита Материалов - Wettability of Interface Boundaries as an Indicator of Their Properties and State

Wettability of Interface Boundaries as an Indicator of Their Properties and State

Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskii pr. 31, Moscow, 119991 Russia

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Abstract — The method of studying wettability is analyzed in application to the fundamental problems of the physical chemistry of surfaces, such as the structure and properties of interfaces and the characteristics of processes on them, and to the technological aspects related to the development of novel materials. The digital processing of a sessile drop image recently developed provides a qualitatively new accuracy of measuring the contact angle. Besides that, a high speed of mathematical processing of the data in these methods enables one not only to follow the changes in the system parameters, but also create a feedback for the directed control over the parameters. Experimental devices that allow one to study various geometries of interfaces, including a pendant drop, a sessile drop, and a drop on a filament, are described. Factors that affect the contact angle on heterogeneous surfaces are analyzed. The accumulated fundamental knowledge about the relation between the measured contact angle and the properties of the surface studied, in one cases, enables one to get quickly a reliable and detailed information about the roughness, chemical composition, and topology of the surface without using expensive equipment, while in some other cases, provides an additional information that makes it possible to clarify the mechanisms of the interfacial phenomena studied. As examples, some most interesting experimental results concerning the properties of interfaces and the processes proceeding on them are considered.