Estimating critical surface tension from droplet spreading area

Publication date: Available online 3 January 2020Source: Physics Letters AAuthor(s): Yukihiro Yonemoto, Tomoaki KunugiAbstractCritical surface tension (CST) is a measure of solid surface tension and is mainly determined by measuring the contact angle of a droplet on a target solid surface. The concept of CST makes it possible to determine solid surface tension without any unprovable assumptions such as the Fowkes hypothesis. However, it requires somewhat special devices and skills for measuring the contact angle. In this work, we propose a simple method to determine the CST of a solid by measuring the droplet spreading area. This method is developed by combining the conventional CST with a simple analytical droplet model. The difference in estimated CSTs between our method and the conventional one is within 3.0%. Our method enables a quick and simple evaluation of the solid surface tension without special devices for measuring the contact angle.
Source: Physics Letters A - Category: Physics Source Type: research
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