Wetting

"Wetness" redirects here. For the biological secretion, see subpreputial wetness.
For other uses, see Wetting (disambiguation).
For other uses of "Wet", see Wet (disambiguation).
Close-up of a drop of water (almost spherical) on blue fabric, with a shadow under it
Water bead on a fabric that has been made non-wetting by chemical treatment.

Wetting is the ability of a liquid to displace gas to maintain contact with a solid surface, resulting from intermolecular interactions when the two are brought together.[1] This happens in presence of a gaseous phase or another liquid phase not miscible with the first one. The degree of wetting (wettability) is determined by a force balance between adhesive and cohesive forces. There are two types of wetting: non-reactive wetting and reactive wetting.[2][3]

Wetting is important in the bonding or adherence of two materials.[4] Wetting and the surface forces that control wetting are also responsible for other related effects, including capillary effects. Surfactants can be used to increase the wetting power of a liquid like water.

Wetting is a focus of research attention in nanotechnology and nanoscience studies due to the advent of many nanomaterials in the past two decades (e.g. graphene,[5] carbon nanotube, boron nitride nanomesh[6]).

  1. ^ Carroll, Gregory T.; Turro, Nicholas J.; Mammana, Angela; Koberstein, Jeffrey T. (2017). "Photochemical Immobilization of Polymers on a Surface: Controlling Film Thickness and Wettability". Photochemistry and Photobiology. 93 (5): 1165–1169. doi:10.1111/php.12751. ISSN 0031-8655. PMID 28295380.
  2. ^ Dezellus, O.; Eustathopoulos, N. (2010). "Fundamental issues of reactive wetting by liquid metals" (PDF). Journal of Materials Science. 45 (16): 4256–4264. Bibcode:2010JMatS..45.4256D. doi:10.1007/s10853-009-4128-x. S2CID 4512480.
  3. ^ Hu, Han; Ji, Hai-Feng; Sun, Ying (2013). "The effect of oxygen vacancies on water wettability of a ZnO surface". Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. 15 (39): 16557–65. Bibcode:2013PCCP...1516557H. doi:10.1039/C3CP51848E. PMID 23949186. S2CID 205850095.
  4. ^ Amziane, Sofiane; Collet, Florence (2017-03-05). Bio-aggregates Based Building Materials: State-of-the-Art Report of the RILEM Technical Committee 236-BBM. Springer. ISBN 9789402410310.
  5. ^ Rafiee, J.; Mi, X.; Gullapalli, H.; Thomas, A. V.; Yavari, F.; Shi, Y.; Ajayan, P. M.; Koratkar, N. A. (2012). "Wetting transparency of graphene" (PDF). Nature Materials. 11 (3): 217–22. Bibcode:2012NatMa..11..217R. doi:10.1038/nmat3228. PMID 22266468. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-11-15.
  6. ^ Mertens, Stijn F. L.; Hemmi, Adrian; Muff, Stefan; Gröning, Oliver; De Feyter, Steven; Osterwalder, Jürg; Greber, Thomas (2016). "Switching stiction and adhesion of a liquid on a solid" (PDF). Nature. 534 (7609): 676–679. Bibcode:2016Natur.534..676M. doi:10.1038/nature18275. PMID 27357755. S2CID 205249367. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-11.