To wet or not to wet: that is the question

TL;DR

This paper investigates the origins and conditions of wetting transitions for liquid films on solid surfaces, emphasizing the role of gas-surface interaction potentials and thermodynamic factors across different systems.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical framework linking gas-surface interactions and thermodynamics to wetting transitions, extending understanding beyond well-studied inert gases to other molecular films.

Findings

Wetting occurs when surface tension is low enough to favor thick film formation.

Wetting transitions depend on the comparison between adsorption well-depth and adsorbate mutual interaction.

Guidelines are proposed for predicting wetting behavior based on interaction parameters and thermodynamic properties.

Abstract

Wetting transitions have been predicted and observed to occur for various combinations of fluids and surfaces. This paper describes the origin of such transitions, for liquid films on solid surfaces, in terms of the gas-surface interaction potentials V(r), which depend on the specific adsorption system. The transitions of light inert gases and H2 molecules on alkali metal surfaces have been explored extensively and are relatively well understood in terms of the least attractive adsorption interactions in nature. Much less thoroughly investigated are wetting transitions of Hg, water, heavy inert gases and other molecular films. The basic idea is that nonwetting occurs, for energetic reasons, if the adsorption potential's well-depth D is smaller than, or comparable to, the well-depth of the adsorbate-adsorbate mutual interaction. At the wetting temperature, Tw, the transition to wetting occurs, for entropic reasons, when the liquid's surface tension is sufficiently small that the free energy cost in forming a thick film is sufficiently compensated by the fluid- surface interaction energy. Guidelines useful for exploring wetting transitions of other systems are analyzed, in terms of generic criteria involving the "simple model", which yields results in terms of gas-surface interaction parameters and thermodynamic properties of the bulk adsorbate.